eliminate financial help for wind and solar power we already cut about 2,000 jobs and i guess it's closer to 3,000 jobs now, but with the elimination of guaranteed loans, we're looking at nearly 40,000 jobs in an industry that represents the future for our children and grandchildren. that other global competitors are investing in. . they will look at this congress and rightly blame us for not seizing on those opportunities. disappointment would be an inadequate word to describe the public's proper assessment of this congress. but, mr. speaker, it's not over yet. we'll have a lame duck session. we'll have an election in

november. this country will choose which path it wants to go forward. does it want to revisit the policies, the first eight years of the 21st century? does it want to look at what happened in the last decade of the 20th century, compare the results, and then assess in which direction we need to be going? the empirical evidence is there. the opportunity will be present on november 6 to choose which path this country will take. it's clear, mr. speaker, that the path this congress has been on, this 112th congress, is not the path that leads to a better, more prosperous future.

for our children and grandchildren. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentleman from georgia, mr. woodall, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

mr. woodall: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate the time. you and i, madam speaker, are freshmen in this house. i have lemped a few things by come -- learned a few things by coming down to the floor by watching my colleagues how to make a good impression. everybody is back in their offices watching the proceedings on tv or folks back in the district watching it on tv. i see their colleagues come and they'll take the podium down to the very lowest level so that when they walk up to the podium they'll be able to drag it all wait up to the top and look big and strong and powerful. in the 18 months you and have served here, madam speaker, we have gotten a lot of advice about how to look good. got a lot of advice about how to tell the good story, how to spin the good tale. as i listened to my friend from

virginia make his presentation earlier, i thought, he and i are looking at exactly the same set of facts and we are drawing exactly the opposite set of conclusions. that makes it so hard to legislate here, madam speaker, because you and i as part of this freshman class we don't care two hoots about what looks good, we care about what is good. we don't care about trying to people believe it's the truth we care about finding the truth. that's been the challenge you and i have had the voting card. i have a chart that's been down to this floor a number of times. it's called a choice of two futures. you have seen it, madam speaker, it's the one that shows the red line of current spending promises. it's the one that goes all the way back to 1940, madam speaker. it shows debt as a percent of g.d.p. it shows the back at the end of the world war ii we were fighting the nazis, the japanese, we were fighting to defend freedom and democracy

around the globe in the name of ending that world war. we borrowed 100% of our economy. our national debt grew to 100% the size of our economy. and that was an investment well made, madam speaker. having defended the liberty of citizens around the world. but we are right back in that same place today, madam speaker. this chart goes from 1940e all the way out -- 1940 all the way out to 2080. it's 140 years of past policy and projected policy and what it shows is that today america is on the verge of carrying that same debt burden, we are not in the middle of a world war to defend freedom and liberty, we are not in the middle of fighting the nazis and trying to prevent a hostile takeover of the world, but we borrowed 100% the size of our

economy. that's not even the most damning part of this chart, madam speaker, what we see is represented by this red line if we do nothing, madam speaker, if our freshmen class had never come to this town, if we close the congress, close the white house, if we never pass a new law and never made a new promise, this red line represents the promises already made. what we see is debt rising to 200%, 300%, had00%, 500% the size of our economy, a level that economists tell us will never be sustainable. and that's if we don't make one new promise on the floor of this house. my colleague from virginia spoke passionately about the need for childcare in this country. spoke eloquently about families at home struggling to balance the demands of work and the demands of childcare. you see it in your district,

madam speaker, i see it in my district. he's absolutely right about the struggles that every single american family faces. and from his words, believes in his heart that the right way to address those challenges in my small town of peach tree corners, georgia, was a federal program. a program that comes right down the street, maybe from the department of health and human service, maybe from the department of education, but that somehow we can create a program here in washington, d.c., that would be absolute best and most efficient iway -- efficient way to deal with my family's challenges and my neighbor's challenges back in peach tree corners, georgia. madam speaker, what i have learned -- i serve on the budget committee and the rules committee, listening to my colleagues talk i somehow thought that perhaps there were some dollars here in

washington, d.c., that came from somewhere other than my constituents' pockets. but i have learned that's not the case. that every single dollar that this institution spends, every single commitment that the administration makes, every single project that the senate wants to fund, every single dollar comes out of the pockets of my constituents back home and your constituents back home, madam speaker. so when we talk about -- i think the phrase, my friend from virginia used was, the anti-government forces on capitol hill. i don't know who those forces are. i feel he was talking about me and this freshman class. i don't know that they are anti-government forces. what i know about are folks who talk about what's the right level of government to get the american taxpayer the absolute best value for their tax dollar. and who are those folks who honestly believe that the best value for their tax dollar, back in peach tree corners, georgia, is to take that dollar

out of the back pocket of a hardworking taxpayer in peach tree corners, move it through the county government, move it up through the state of georgia government, move it up here to the federal government, and send it back down to a federal agency that's going to send it back down to a state agency that will send it back over to a county government in order to provide childcare. who believes that's the absolute best and most efficient way to spend an american taxpayer? and that's the bat that will we have here in this house. it's not about government and anti-government. it's about good government and bad government. we are here in the federal government, madam speaker, the federal government and there are responsibilities that we have. making war, one ever our responsibilities, defending our border, one of our responsibilities. maintaining the postal roads, one ever our responsibilities. but there's so many other levels of government. state government, county government. local government.

that can fulfill some of these needs that my colleagues seem to believe only the federal government is right to fill. i want to go back to this chart, madam speaker. this is a chart that promises already made. so often i pick up the newspaper, madam speaker, and it sounds like everybody is complaining up here in washington, d.c. it's all about pointing fingers and not about solving problems. what i am so proud of in the 18 monts you and i have been here like the gentleman from indiana, we have not only identified the problem, which is a crushing debt burden that threatens the economic security not just of our children and grandchildren, but of our very republic, we have not yet identified that -- just identified that problem, we promulgate add solution. it's represented here on the chart madam speaker by this green line. it's labeled the path to prosperity. i'm so proud, i serve on the budget committee, my chairman is paul ryan.

this house came together, you don't hear that a lot on the front page of the newspaper, but this house came together in a bipartisan way to pass a budget not just once, madam speaker, passed it for the first time in 2011 but again in this year 2012 and we have been waiting on the senate to act, it's our constitutional obligation to pass that budget each and every year, the president's offered one each ander year. the house has passed one each and every year but the senate has failed to act and we laid out line item by line item how we would prevent this most certain destruction of economic liberty and security in our land. it's represented by this green line, madam speaker. from 2012 all the way out to 2051. you don't run up trillionle toar debts like we are running up and solve it overnight. you can't. you can't run up 100% of your g.d.p. in debt and solve it

over night. we can't levy that kind of tax burden on the american people, but we can solve it over time. we can keep it from getting worse today and we can make it better tomorrow. that's what our plan is. i think that's important, madam speaker, because, again, when i read about it, when i look at the newspaper, it's finger pointing who's to blame, and whose fault, and why didn't they do better? i don't care whose fault it was. i don't care who got us here. my knowledge of history tells me there's a lot of blame to go around. i care about who is going to get us out of here. who is going to solve these problems? who is going to move us from the precipice of economic disaster back to the robust american economy for which we are known around the globe? this house has passed that plan, madam speaker. not once but twice. what i show here, madam

speaker, is the budget that the president has introduced. i want to give this president his due. i come down here, we saw it with the rule yesterday, we see it in some of the presentations on the other side of the aisle, you come down here and it's as if the other side is just evil and that's why nothing works. that's just not true at all. there are honest hardworking men and women on both sides of this aisle who represent constituents back home who just have very different understandings of who we are as a people. some of them have different hopes and dreams about where we will go as a people. different needs that they are asking government to meet. this president got more done in the first two years of his term than most presidents get done in eight. he was incredibly effective. i would argue he was incredibly effective at doing things destroying the very fabric of freedom in this country, but he was incredibly effective. he won the majority of the vote here in this nation, madam speaker, and he's campaigning

to win again this fall. smart guy. effective guy. completely different understanding of who we are as a people and where we should go as a nation than the one i have, but a talented politician nonetheless. he is honored -- he has honored his legal requirement to submit a budget to this congress each and every year that he has been in office. that's important. because that distinguishes him from the united states senate which also has a legal obligation to submit a budget and has refused to do so for the last three years. you wonder why it is we can't come together on funding priorities, madam speaker, three years the senate has said we are not going to tell you what we are interested in doing. we are not going to provide you with any ideas. and because we won't move it, the house product can't move, the president doesn't have anything to work with, and you see the kind of economic turmoil that we are in today. but the president to his credit has submitted a budget each and every year with his priorities. this is the budget he submitted for 2012. this was just last february,

the law required it. he complied with it. but he's running for re-election and he's got his fingers on the pulse of the american people, but what they need and what they desire and what they want from the united states government, all tuned towards an election in november anti-budget that he submitted -- and the budget that he submitted raidses taxes as the gentleman from virginia advocated by $2 trillion on the american impeachment. -- american people. $2 trillion. if you want to know how much a trillion is, madam speaker, i speak to a lot of school groups back home, we try to break down those zeros into things that matter. . if you began on the day that jesus christ was born and you wasted $1 million a day, seven days a week from the day gee suft christ was born -- jesus christ was born through today, yute have to throw $1 million a day every day for another 734

years to throw away your first $1 trillion. your first. the president proposes to raise taxes on the american people by $2 trillion. folks say, rob, we have debts. we have bills to pay. may have to raise taxes to do it, they say. he raises taxes by $2 trillion but raises spending by even more. that's what we're talking about here, madam speaker. here is the chart of the promises we've already made, the unsustainable path of spending that we have already committed to as a nation, spending that has to be reduced, spending that has to be cut, priorities that have to be reset and reorganized and the president in his budget this year said, not only are we going to spend all of that, we're going to spend $2 trillion more. such that we're going to tax the american people an additional $2 trillion, but we're going to

raise the debt faster than if we had in the past budget at all. $2 trillion coming into the treasury more, but more spending going out the door the debt actually rises faster under the president's plan for 2013 and 2014 and twifert and 2006. it rises faster in 2018 and 2019 and 20206789 you have to go all the way out, madam speaker, to 2021, i blew it up here on the chart because i know folks won't be able to see it back in their offices, 2021, represented by this sliver of green way out there on the end of this chart, that says, if we agree to the president's budget and if we raise taxes by $2 trillion on the american people, with all of this new spending that he would like to do as well, way out in 2021 we'll borrow just a little bit less money than if we had done nothing at all. and i say that, madam speaker, because folks aren't here bickering over nothing.

folks are up here advocating at the top of their lungs for their vision of america. the greatest experiment in the history of the world, madam speaker. let people govern themselves. a republic as never been seen in world history -- never before seen in world history, we started that republic here. we're maintaining that republic here. i would tell you we're duty-bound to pass that republic on, not just to our children and our grandchildren but for generations to come. but we have come to a next us in our history where -- nexus in our history where we disagree on who we are as a people. the president, incredibly effective, incredibly talented, running for re-election, trying to enunciate those hopes and dreams that the american will respond to and endorse and re-elect him based on, believes that even with this crushing

burden of debt, that every single economist agrees is unsustainable going into the future, advocates that over the next 10 years we do not one thing about it. in fact, we raise taxes by $2 trillion, we exacerbate it and we make it worse. that's not who this house is, madam speaker. that's not why you and i ran for congress. that's not why folks left their families, that's not why folks got off the sidelines and said, i got to complain about it or run for congress and do something about it and we elected 99 new members in this house last fall. 99 new members, republicans and democrats coming from all walks of life to say, we can do better. we can be a part of the solution. we don't have to point the finger of blame, we can actually put forward solutions. and we have. you know, again, you don't read that in the newspaper, madam speaker. it's no wonder folks are so disgusted with what happens in this town. because when you read about

what's happening in this town, it's pretty disgusting. i want to talk about some of the good news. i have four bars here, madam speaker. fiscal year 2010, federal government discretionary spending, fiscal year 2011 fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2013. you know, this fiscal year 2010, madam speaker, that was money that was spent before you and i came to congress. that was money that was spent while my republican colleagues were in the minority, while we had democrats running the white house and the u.s. house and the u.s. senate. there was one party control, one party, republican control, from 2000 to 2006. we had one party democratic control from 2008 to 2010. spending levels, discretionary spending, folks say, rob, doesn't all spending begin in the house? no, it does not, for the most part the entire budget -- 2/3 of the budget is comprised of mandatory spending. spending that does not come through the house each and every year but discretionary spending comes through the house.

this $1.27 trillion comes through the house for us to make a decision on each and every year. madam speaker, you know the story. the decisions we've been making. when you and i arrived we joined our senior republican colleagues here, we created a majority, a new republican majority here in this house, for f.y. 2011, the first year we served we reduced spending, i'm not talking about washington, d.c., funny math, i'm not talking about where you raise spending by $10 and call it a cut, i'm talking about actual u.s. dollars going out the door in discretionary spending, when we came into this congress and took on f.y. 2011 appropriations, we reduced it from $1.27 trillion to $1.21 trillion, $64 billion less, not inflation adjusted, actual dollars, $64 billion less in

2011 than in 2012. you say, but, rob, that's not enough. you're absolutely right, it's not enough. we only have control over a small amount of the budget here. we went on to 2012, reduced it again down to $1, 180,000,000,000. another $31 billion reduction. $31 billion is enough. no, of course it's not enough. is the history of in this country that we raise it and raise it and raise it? yes, it is. have we changed that history for the first time since world war ii, madam speaker? you better believe it. it has not happened in this land since the end of world war ii, that a congress year after year after year and now after year reduces the discretionary spending going out the door. because it wasn't just that we spent less in 2011 than we spent in 2010. we spent less in 2012 than we spent in 2011 and with the bill that we passed on the floor of this house yesterday we are now

on track to spend less in 2013 than we spent in 2012. now, just to be clear, madam speaker, we talk so much about what goes on here on the house floor. when i show you the path of fiscal despair that is ahead of us with this red line, the current path, if we do nothing, and i show you the green line, the solution that we proposed in this house, it's important to note that the green line is just what we proposed. we've passed it in a bipartisan way. we've passed it twice in a bipartisan way. but the senate's never taken it up. the president's promised he'd never implement it. it's something that we see as a vision of prosperity for this country, but we cannot get agreement from the senate or the white house to implement it. that idea is distinguished from what we've done with discretionary spending. where these bills have passed the house, have passed sometimes

the kicking and screaming senate and have been signed into law by the president of the united states. this is not ans a separational goal that i have -- an aspirational goal that i have here, madam speaker, this is the law of the land. madam speaker, all the easy choices are gone. they were gone before you and got here. they may well have been gone before our colleague there indiana got here. the easy choices have all been made already. the only thing that's left are the hard choices. and, madam speaker, you know as well as i do, when we talk about cutting spending, when we talk about reducing the size and scope of the federal government, every dollar we spend comes from back home. every dollar we spend comes out of the wallets of our constituents back home. we get to choose where we want to spend that money. as a voter back home i can choose to send it to my city government, i can send it to my county or state or federal government.

but who back home around the water cooler, around the coffee pot says, what we need in this country is efficiency and 2015. we want it done really well and really fast and we want it done for the lowest possible price, let's see, let's send it to washington, d.c., and let them do it. i bet they'll get it right. who says that? nobody says that. here we are trying to nationalize the entire health care system in this country in the name of efficiency and lower cost. no, we're not going to get it right. i say, let's keep it in the hands of the private sectorment some folks may say, give it our city or county government, nobody says, let's send it to washington, d.c. so, when we're making these reductions, when year we're trying to be 2015y with the dollars that we have seized from american taxpayers out of the paychecks each and every month, there's not one anti-government advocate in this town. what there are are good government advocates in this town. and whether you sit on the

democratic or republican side of the aisle, one thing which we can all agree is that the federal government has let us down. the gentleman from virginia made a passionate case of why it is we need to fund green energy. i happen to have the largest manufacturer of high efficiency solar panels in america. in my district. i believe in green energy. but i don't believe in crony capitalism. that's what we saw in solyndra. crony capitalism, where the political contributors get the taxpayer dollars, where hundreds of millions of dollars can be wasted with no accountability whatsoever. that's not good for anyone. that's not good for the left, that's not good for the right. that is not good for a single american taxpayer. we're talking about good government here. madam speaker, i dare say as i look at this chart to my left of decreasing federal spending, actual dollars going down, not just for one year, not just for two years, but now for three years in a row, that that would

not have happened but for the american people speaking out in the 2010 election and sending 99 new members to this congress. we had lots of members here who believe in thrift, who believe in efficiency and making sure the taxpayer gets maximum value out of every tax dollar but there were not enough. there were not enough. i can't tell you how many times i'd watch the gentleman from indiana alone as he advocated for good government. alone on the floor of the house trying to make a difference. the american people sent 99 new faces here, new minds, new ideas . and it's made this difference. madam speaker, i don't have any idea how the next election's going to turn out. but i'm absolutely certain with every fiber of my being that we are going to have the largest voter turn joverout in american history -- turnout in american

history come november 6. and i know this. there's one thing i trust in this country beyond the united states constitution and the king james bible, it's the american people. and when more americans turn out in november than ever before to make a decision about who we are as a nation, where we're going as a nation and who shall lead this nation, we are going to get it right. don't have any idea which direction that's going to go. but i trust the american people. madam speaker, newt gingrich said it best when he was down in georgia speaking during the presidential campaign, he said, this year we do not need a presidential candidate, we -- we can believe in. we need candidates who believe in us. that's one of the distinguishing features on the floor of this house, madam speaker.

do you believe in the american people, do you trust the american people, do you know in your heart that the american people left to their own devices will get it right every time? or do you believe they just can't handle it? and it's up to washington, d.c., to solve those issues for them? we'll find out on november 6 where the hearts and minds of the american people are, madam speaker. but you see on these charts behind us the kind of success that we can have as a nation, as a people in turning the good ship america, when the american people turn out to the polls and send back to washington those folks who care more about the future of this country than they care about themselves. with that, madam speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: can you yield -- >> can you yield your time to me? the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy

of january 5, 2011, -- mr. burton: i was going to say, would it be in order for the gentleman to yield the balance of his time to me? the speaker pro tempore: the chair will reallocate the time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from indiana, mr. burton, for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader mr. burton: thank you, madam speaker. i'm not going to take the full 30 minutes, but i have been in this congress for a long, long time and i have been frustrated a lot and i think maybe i have learned a little bit and for any of my colleagues who are in their offices watching on television, i thought i would make a few comments about some of the things that i hope that

they will take as a little bit of a lesson for them down the road. the first thing that -- i have been on the foreign affairs committee for 30 years, and the first thing i learned is that you can't make the world over in our image. no matter how hard we try. there are different cultures, different people, different religions. tribal, all kinds of things. and when we go into another part of the world and try to make them like us, we cause a lot of problems. we caught a lot of lives. and we lose a lot of money. we should always realize in the back of our minds that we should do what's in the interest of the united states of america first, last, and always. and not try to make the world look like us. the second thing that i think my colleagues, i hope they

realize, is that we are going to have to work with some pretty unsavory persons, sometimes. muammar gaddafi was a terrible, terrible tyrant in libya. and when ronald reagan had to deal with him after he bombed a nightclub that killed a lot of americans in germany, ronald reagan flew the planes over and bombed gaddafi and can gaffey wasn't a problem anymore -- gaddafi wasn't a problem anymore. he realized that terrorism from his country was not going to stand. so gaddafi was not a problem for the united states from then on. now, it was a a -- a probable in this country, he killed a lot of people, there might have been more carnage, but it was in his country. and because of that we went into libya, spent billions of dollars of our money, we drove him out of office and had him

killed, and now there's chaos over there. and they killed our ambassador. they tortured him i understand, i won't go into the details. but it was pretty bad. they killed three other people. they burned our flag, and the place is in chaos. so what did we get when we got rid of gaddafi? he was a bad guy. he was terrible to his own people. but what we have now is a complete chaotic situation in that part of africa. the same thing is true in tunisia. of course our president went over to egypt and he gave a speech talking about how we all had to get along and how there ought to be democracy in egypt. mubarak, the dictator over there, was a bad guy, but he had lived up to what we call the camp david accords and the united states and egypt worked together to make sure there was peace in the middle east and

there wasn't any war going on involving israel or anything else. but we led the fight to get rid of mubarak. we did it. along with some help. and now mubarak is gone. and we have the muslim brotherhood. now, a lot of people don't know much about the muslim brotherhood, but they are -- they have been adjudged a terrorist organization in the past. and i was told and everybody else was told when mubarak left there was going to be democratcy, freedom, and human rights in egypt. we had 78 coptic christians just murdered recently, and as you know they came over and a mob -- it was planned. everybody knows p it. it wasn't because of that move vee. they came over and they scaled the walls of the u.s. embassy, they burned the american flag, and they ran around waving the radical muslim flag, and they

touted their radical leaders as the future leaders of that area. osama bin laden, they were carrying his picture around saying we support osama bin laden. now, this is a country that we just gave $1.5 billion to. our money. and the reason we gave them that money is because we have been paying them for years and years to make sure that they lived with the camp david peace accords which meant there would be peace between egypt and israel and throughout the middle east. mubarak's gone. the muslim brotherhood's in charge. and there's chaos in egypt. and the entire middle east is threatened further. so when you look across the northern tier of africa, i hope my colleagues will realize, we have tried to create

governments that agree with us and look like us and that will be tokens of the united states of america. instead of leaving them alone, we have helped create chaos. now, i just got back from the persian gulf recently, i was in ba lane, and bahrain's -- bahrain, bahrain's a friend of ours. we have the fifth fleet there which patrols the entire persian gulf, protecting those waterways, we get about 35% of our energy from that part of the world, and iran is sending people into that country to undermine that government and stir up the people. it's the same thing that happened in libya, same thing that happened in egypt. and now it's happening in the persian gulf states. and we get a third of our energy, if we don't get that energy, if we don't become energy independent, we'll have the lights off one of those days and we'll pay about $5, 6,

$7, $8 a gallon for gasoline. this isn't balloony, this is fact. and the radicals are working in that entire region to take over. and we are trying to help these radicals or have helped these radicals in a number of countries and now we have got a real chaotic mess on our hands. yesterday my colleagues overwhelmingly passed a continuing resolution, most people don't know what that is, but it's a spending bill that takes us from now until march of next year. an i came down to the floor when the discussion was going on, the recommittal motion, i said, tell me, is any of that money going to libya or egypt? and nobody would answer me. i can tell you right now additional moneys are going to go to libya and additional moneys are going to go to egypt. and both of those countries are not friends of the united states.

a lady from congress told me yesterday she was in egypt not long ago, and she talked to one of the members of the muslim brotherhood and she said, what are the goals that you have? he says our goal is the muslim brotherhood is to have the al qaeda flag, the muslim brotherhood flag, fly over the white house in the united states. now, he may have been exaggerating a little, but if you look at what the muslim brotherhood has said recently and their new president, they said they weren't going to involve themselves so deeply in government over there but they took over the legislative branch, they have taken over the president, and their president recently said he wanted to model their government after iran. and egypt is the biggest country in the middle east. but we went in there, our president went in there, gave a speech, and we said we wanted to change that and get rid of the dictator, mubarak, who is not a good guy, but at least he supported the camp david peace accords which jimmy carter worked on all the way up until

now, and now we have a chaotic situation over there. so we can't make the world over in our image. we should not try to nation build. i supported it, i supported our efforts when we went into iraq because i felt we had to get rid of saddam hussein and i felt we had to stop the movement of radical islam in its tracks. and i thought democracy would be a good thing there. but if you look at what's happened, the democracy there is -- although it's a fledgling democracy it's very rocky, and they are very close to iran. they have met with the iranian leaders, ahmadinejad, and so this nation building we did in iraq right now i think is still tenuous. i'm not sure it's going to work out. we spent billions and billions and maybe trillions of dollars over there and lost a lot of lives. and then in informing --

afghanistan, i support going after the taliban, i think we ought to get rid of those guys, we ought to stop the terrorists, it's extremely important, but the one thing that i think is very important when we go after these guys is we make absolutely sure that we are going to get them and we are going to win. and the problem we have with afghanistan after losing all these lives and costing all this money is that we are going to pull out in about a year and a half and in my opinion that whole area is going to be, again, in a state of turmoil and we will have spent billions of dollars, our treasure and a lot of lives and it will still not be stabilized. i think it's really unfortunate because the problems that we felt -- one of the things that bothers me is every time we have a war we think we can have a war that's antiseptic. we are not going to kill any civilians. you can go in and if you attack

an area and kill the taliban or al qaeda, you have to be real careful you don't damage or kill civilians. as a result al qaeda and the taliban they hide behind civilians. they go into schools and churches and into hospitals. because they know that they can't be attacked unless we go in and there's innocent lives lost. we face the same thing in world war ii and people don't remember this, but we had to do things to win that war to stop adolf hitler and mussolini and togeo, that we would never -- togo we would never want to do. we dropped nuclear weapons on hiroshima and nagasaki. we killed millions of innocent human beings, but that was the world does of war -- cost of war. now today with the television and internet and everything else, we go to war and the next day you see somebody that's injurd, a woman, a child, they -- injured, this woman, a child, they say it's horrible.

our military is handcuffed. they say they can't go after and go after these guys in certain areas because of the potential civilian casualties. we can't run a war like that. you either go in to win or you don't go in at all. we shouldn't risk american lives and treasure unless we are going in to win. that's why when i think back to iraq, i think back maybe we should have gone in and beat the hell out of saddam hussein, let them know we weren't going to put up with that, and pulled out and say you got a country. you run it properly if you conduct yourself in the way you did before, we'll be back. it would have scared iran to death, the taliban to death. instead we went in there to nation build and 10, 12 years later we face much of the same thing that we faced back then. the other thing i think that's important for congress to do, we don't do it, is when the administration, i don't care whether it's democrat or republican administration, when they make a mistake, we in the

congress must speak out. we must not just go along with the administration, whoever it is, because we want to keep a good relationship with them. our responsibility as congress is to make sure that the government of the united states doesn't go awry. and i have seen time and time again in the years i have been here where presidents have made a mistake and we stay here and we are strangely silent. we have to speak up. we have to let the american people know when mistakes are made and we have to correct them. and we must not let un-elected bureaucrats decide all of our foreign policy. we have people at the state department, people in our government, people who are un-elected who make decisions that really lead us in the wrong direction. and i speak again for the administration, the state department when i talk about libya. we wept in there and what did we get?

we got rid of gaddafi, now there's chaos. now they are attacking our embassy and burning our flag and waving around al qaeda flags and talking about how the world would be better off if the radical muslims were in charge. the same thing is true in egypt. we got rid of mubarak, what did we get? the muslim brotherhood, a radical muslim fundamentalist group that wants to detroit frdoms we believe in, not to mention our best ally in the entire region, israel. and israel's the only place over there that we can count on if everything goes wrong. and so our state department and the administration and previous administrations have made these kinds of mistakes and we have been strangely, strangely, strangely silent. so i just like to end up by saying to my colleagues we should profit from our past mistakes. we should make sure that we don't try to nation build. we can't make the world over in

our image. it's not possible. we have to work with unsavory leaders sometimes, people that we don't like, that we don't think are good people because of stability in the region and because of america's interest. our interests ought to be number one. the protection of our country ought to be number one. the protection of our soldiers and the people who go to war and the people of this country ought to be number one. and of secondary importance are the lives of these people in these countries that are radical. . that ought to be our number one goal. the united states of america first, last and always. and we should not turn over to unelected bureaucrats the control of our foreign policy. we should listen to them, we should have our ambassadors over there, we should have good people over there like the ambassador that just lost his life. but the final decisions ought to be brought before the committees

of the congress and we ought to discuss them and we ought to participate in the decision making process with the commander in chief but not let unelected leaders, bureaucrats, make those decisions. and finally we must remember we should never go to war unless we realize the cost that is going to be involved. you cannot win an antiseptic war. you can have a peace, a tenuous peace, we had that in korea. we still have the potential for a war over there, the 38th parallel. we didn't go in and we didn't win it. so now we have the communists up north and the freedom-loving peoples down south. we went into northern africa, into somalia, and we tried to nation build there and we had to pull out because you couldn't get it done. we've gone all over the place and tried to nation build and

we've gone all over the world and tried to make the world over in our image. and we've gone all over the world and tried to fight antiseptic wars and they just don't work. if you're going to fight a war you have to go in and win it and then leave and do what's right for america. you can't stay there for eight, 10, 12 years and try to nation build because ultimately you lose a lot of life, you spend our treasure and you don't get the job done. and i'm a conservative. i'm one of those guys that is the -- is one of the strongest supporters of the military in the entire congress and i'm one of those people they call a hawk and one of those people that says, you know, get the bad guys wherever they are. but i've learned over the past 30 years that you have to do certain things if you're going to make america great and survive as a nation. and those things are very important. you can't make the world over in our image, you have to work with

some democrats, some leaders in other parts of the world that are not savory people because of our interests and our stability. you can't spend our money and our treasure and our lives without going in to win. and you can't fight an antiseptic war. if we go in and we go in to win we're going to have to take some innocent lives and it's a tragic thing but that's the way that war is. and the reason dwight eisenhower and the american forces were so great and so successful in world war ii, in europe, and in japan was because we went in and we did what had to be done to win. and if we hadn't done that we might all be speaking german today. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the remainder of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30

minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. the things that are going on right now in the world are deeply troubling. for those of us who have studied history it becomes even more disturbing. when we make the same mistakes again, mistakes that get people killed, who have entrusted their lives to their government, said i'm willing to lay down my life for you, i give my life in

service to you, and as some of the military, some of our outstanding military in afghanistan this year have told me sincerely, quote, i'm willing to lay down my life for my country, please don't waste my life. unquote. the decisions of a president who has never really gotten involved in foreign affairs, his experience before coming into public office is as a community organizer, that can be fine.

if you adequately study history and really understand. not from the standpoint of an indonesian school child and the limited viewpoint that that may yield, but from the standpoint of someone who has studied history inside and out and understands such things as the axiom, that when a nation's enemies see that nation's strongest ally or allies pulling away from it, that's when they move. the old axiom that among nations weakness is provocative. two years ago i'd seen an

article in this -- and this may have been the one i'd seen because the title was "obama votes against israel". this is an article dated may 29, 2010. and it points out in the article that the white house sided with israel's enemies, something that this nation didn't normally do, and basically demanding that israel disclose all their nukes. well, those who study the bible, biblical history, may recall that king hezekiah was a very good king in israel and things went pretty well but isiah was sent to confront hezekiah about what he had done with visiters

who had come from babylon. and god knew what had been done but isiah asked and hezekiah explained and this is the new paraphrase version, but in essence he said, you know, all these wonderful leaders came over from babylon, so i showed them all of our treasure and if you get into the strict interpretations, translation, he basically says, i showed them our armory, all of our defenses. and isiah points out, you fool, you're going to lose the country because you've done this. no matter what point in history you are, when a nation shows all its defenses to its enemies that information at some point in time will be used to take down such a foolish nation.

even when a nation discloses all of their defenses to friends, to staunch allies, because as we've seen, we thought the u.s. had an ally in castro in cuba. and yet once he was in power he turned rather remarkably against the united states. those things happen. people -- power changes in different countries, and if they have information, if they have weaponry, if they have the wherewithal, then sometimes a former friend can turn into an enemy. so it was no surprise to me, being a student of history, that when it came out through the media that, gee, the obama administration has taken a shocking history or a shocking position when looked at historically against israel's

well-being, then was it a shock that the flow -- flotilla left within only mere days to go challenge the blockade at the gaza strip? nobody should have been surprised by that. because the world, israel's enemies had been shown that this administration was willing to pander to israel's enemies, to try to make israel's enemies think, you know, hey, you know, we're one of you guys. we're just friends, we want to be friends with everybody. it doesn't work that way. you don't throw your friends under the bus and you don't gain friends by paying off enemies. it has never worked, it will never work. it gets people killed. so israel's been in a bit of a bind.

and when we see the way this fiasco over the last year and a half has been handled, some might say, look, this is no time to be talking about these things. for goodness sakes, decisions are being made as i speak that will either let people live or get people killed if we don't talk about it now. when will we talk about it? let the historians write that nobody would stand up and say, this is a mistake? let's don't repeat the terrible chapters of history, let's get it right. all of us who served in the united states armed services took an oath and had it cross our mind, you know, the time they come where i do have to lay down my life for my country,

that after i had a soldier say that in afghanistan, had to realize, you know, i had that in the back of my mind, i'm willing to lay down my life, i hope it doesn't get wasted. well, the thing is every american that has laid down their lives for their country didn't do it for this administration or any other. there are ideals that this country was founded on and stands for -- -- for even now. but we're in the midst of a crisis. and part of it created by our own mishandling and we have got to make sure that we do not continue to make the same mistakes and continue to pander to our enemies and continue to provoke them by showing weakness. we owe the lives that have been laid down, that are even now

coming -- being brought back into this country. we owe them an obligation to make sure that others do not lose their lives unless it really counts. i come over here nauseated today upon hearing reports about -- and i pray god they're not accurate -- about what may have happened during the eight hours or so the body of our great ambassador was missing. but we also know, well, gee, the embassy in cairo released a statement and they were basically condemning anybody that would produce a provocative film that might offend muslims. good grief, how many movies have been produced that provoke and

insult those of us who are christians? thank god that most of us as christians understand that that does not justify going and killing people and burning people and burning up buildings. we understand that we believe in freedom of speech, that god gave us freedom to make choices and so in the most ideal country others will have freedom to choose right and freedom to choose wrong. but if it's too wrong we have criminal laws domestically to deal with those issues. but you would hope someone, before any further action is taken to condemn americans for using freedom of speech here, will analyze the situation as they did not before they first condemned.

and even had a general officer of our military call and ask about maybe not producing a film, not producing it out there, whatever it was he asked, don't use your first amendment rights that i'm supposed to be fighting for you to have, don't use those. that will make my job easier. well, actually the general doesn't know it makes it more difficult. let's look at this. let's analyze it a moment. . there was a question that made me start asking questions. let's look at it. we heard about this film that all of a sudden on 9/11, shouldn't that ring a bell, on 9/11 provoked riots, it provoked people in cairo, climbing up the walls of our embassy, and it's

easy to watch these things happen. you know historically that people will push the envelope and these people did in cairo. i wonder if the soldiers will stop us if we go up to the wall and maybe they go up and spray paint on the wall. nobody stopped us from there. how about if we climb on the wall? no soldiers. they watched, they didn't do anything. they just watched. oh, well let's push it a lit further. let's climb up the walls. wow, we're up here on top of the walls and the soldiers that are supposed to protect the embassy have done nothing. let's take down the american flag. that's always popular here. let's run up an al qaeda-type flag. and nothing was done. that is provocative in its weakness.

now, this film is still a mystery. it's still -- it should make people go, wait a minute. this doesn't make sense. that all of a sudden this film provecked nations of people, masses of people to come out and riot and it would cause them to kill an ambassador and innocent people, this film, let's look at this a little more carefully. you find a story that actually turns out there's a report that this movie came out in july. so a movie that nobody notices, nobody pays any attention to,

comes out in july. well, if this ridiculous movie, insulting movie, that insults muslims, we're told, i haven't seen it, don't plan to. but it came out in july. how on 9/11 -- now on 9/11, all of a sudden -- how on 9/11 does this movie cause people to be killed? i would only submit -- humbly submit that a lesson to learn here is when american citizens utilize their free speech right, their freedoms of religion, that the president and everyone under his command is not to direct that people can't use their freedom of speech and freedom of religion, they're to protect them. and the messages that should come out from an administration are not, don't use your freedom of speech and freedom of religion because we don't want

to offend anyone. i'm offended all the time. you know -- i don't -- you don't go kill people because of it. urn western law, though it's not recognized under sharia law, under western law of western civilization, we dealt with this all the time in the court over which i was the judge. provoking words. no matter how insulting provoking words are never a defense to a physical assault. much less murder. that's what we believe in this country. that's what western civilizations believe. we should be defending that civilized concept, not pandering to people who are being enflamed by our enemies. then we find out that the information -- inflammation of

people who would kill american citizens and an american ambassador, were inflamed by this film that came out in july, but it was not until it was released through the egyptian media that it started firing people up. wow, isn't that remarkable? right before 9/11. if it's an insulting movie, and from the information we have, the muslim brotherhood is basically in control in egypt, the muslim brotherhood basically could shut down any egyptian media source, but jet they produce, they get this information, get the film out there. not only that, because there are some muzz lems that may not seek enge learn that might be enflamed into a fire that well

burn down buildings and kill people, we better interpret that into their languagement gee, why would a foreign country who this president says has been our ally, he says they're not our ally, but they're not our enemy, then we hear, actually, we do consider them an ally, what are they are, a friend does not take some obscure film that nobody noticed, interpret it into a language it knows will inflame people who well kill americans and put it out there. that's not a friend. that's an enemy of the united states of america. and it is an insult to this government, to the american people, that this body would vote for a continuing resolution that allowed the potential for more money to go to enemies that would put out films that will inflame people to get americans killed.

we owe those who have given their lives better than this. and we owe those who are serving us abroad and serving here at home and may be sent better than this. there are those who would say we should not be talking about this. if we don't talk about it now, other mace give their lives and let's save their lives for something more important than a mistake by an administration. our ambassador to libya is a hero. i've been to too many funerals of brave men and women who have given their lives for this country. so when i read a report or a media source that discloses the

name of a former seal team member who is acting as private security at our facility in libya and the report is, doesn't put it in quotes, but the report says that the administration released the information that this former seal member was killed while running for cover, now i recognize that there are enough in the mainstream media who are so loyal they take their marching orders, they may not lay downer that live bus lay down their reputations for this administration, somebody may be willing to come fwrd and say, you know what, it's not exactly what the administration said. maybe we misinterpreted that in the story. it doesn't matter. the story came out and the administration owes those who have given their lives for that administration better than that because i can guarantee you, i know enough seal members and i know enough former seal team

members that that seal team member was not running for cover when he was killed. if he was running, it was getting to -- to get to a place from which he could conduct a better assault on the enemy. that's the way they think. they don't think run for cover. they think, where can i get to the best position to fight, to save those entrusted to my care. that's an insult. and i hope i never see another report like that from this administration or any republican administration because it's an insult and we owe better than that to those fighting for us. who made the decision in the egyptian government, in the egyptian media, to take this july obscure and from what we

hear pitifully made film and blow it up in the mideast? figuratively speaking. figuratively speaking, blow it up in the middle east so people who heard it and saw it would blow up americans? who made that decision? and who made the decision, we need to know, who made the decision to release a statement that was provocative in its weakness in saying, you know what, people over here are getting upset because some id yat made a film back in the united states and so we need to be sure not to insult muslims. when have i ever seen anything from this administration say, you know what, we need to not make films in hollywood that insult christians. people like mother theresa that deserve better treatment than that. when have i seen that? we haven't. because this has been in the past a free country.

where we have freedom of speech and free tom to make stupid, ridiculous, insulting movies. but the obscure film this state department apologized for had to be translated. it was translated by somebody. it had to be put on egyptian television by somebody. who could that have been? and i would submit that until we find out, there should not be a dime of american money nor money that americans have had to borrow in order to send to egypt, shouldn't go over there. shouldn't go to libya. and it's time we wake up and quit playing stupid, silly games like this administration is doing with our dear friend israel and understand decisions

have consequences. and when this administration sided with israel's enemies in may of 2010, it had consequences. people were hurt. people were killed. this administration, perhaps pouting, whatever the reason, i'm going to -- beyonce, jay-z, i understand they're fantastic entertainersering but you've got a country named israel that's been a friend, that has enemies at the gate. and there's not a better way to say it. while we are pandering and playing and actually trying to make our enemies like us by offering to buy them offices in

qatar, to let the murdering thugs out so they can murder again, while we're playing these games, thinking maybe our enemy will start liking us, the enemy is at the gate and those centrifuges that are spinning in iran are a modern day mass of gas chambers that are being constructed for israelis and for americans. read what their leaders have said. listen to whatter that leaders have said. there's one way to stop them. that is to be serious that we will take out anyone who wants to annihilate americans or america. when they know we're serious, we may not have to go do it. but it cannot be a bluff. people need to know the american people will not allow innocent

american citizens to be target practice. for those who to not know enough history to know that in the song that our marines are so proud of, that i as a grool child learned to -- as a grade school child learned to sing in public school, to the shores of tripoli, marines have been fighting our country's battles. those shores of tripoli came when the muslim barberry -- barbary pirates were attacking our ships. we did not have a navy, we did not have marines. and it was flabber gasting to people leek thomas jefferson who was sent over there to negotiate, why in the world would you attack americans? we never attacked you. you ought to look at us as peace-loving. and it was a shock when they

were told that actually you should our religion -- that that actually under our religion, we believe if we die while attacking infidels, which we consider you to be, we go straight to paradise. jefferson and others were shocked. this doesn't mesh with most real squons. what religion would think it was ok, that you'd get to paradise, by killing innocent people. thank god that the vast majority of muslims don't believe that. but it is pure folly to ignore those that do. we owe those who serve the united states of america better than this. to those who would say this is a political season, we should not be talking about anything but jobs, i would say, before this economy can thrive, we have got

to fulfill our oath to provide for the common defense. . because the economy won't last much longer if we don't protect those who ares here and abroad. -- who are americans here and abroad. i pray for the wisdom of president obama, of secretary of state hillary clinton, of those who are serving abroad these united states of america. and for our leaders in congress. that though we are so close to an election, what will matter more is the fulfillment of our oath and the protection as best we can of those who are trying

to protect us. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. does the gentleman have a motion? to adjourn? mr. gohmert: madam speaker, at this time i move that we do now hereby adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. according to the -- accordingly the house stands adjourned until

>> the bill limits the energy departments's ability to issue such loan guarantees and adds penalties for officials who fail to comply with the bill's requirement. the bill passed in house 245-161. the house returns next tuesday for morning hour speeches, 2:00 p.m. for legislative work here on c-span. president barack obama vice president joe biden and first lady michelle obama met this morning with members of the 2012 olympic and paralympic games. the athletes presented obamas with the u.s. flag. the u.s. won 104 medals in london, 46 of them gold. the paralympics which came immediately after attracted 2.7 million spectatorsñi a recoi

bob woodward will be our guest monday on washington çójournal, the washington potion editor written a book how the president and congress fail to pass a check program. mr.woodward will answer your questions about the book monday at 8:30 eastern live on c-span. >> we can keep investing in wind and solar and clean coal and farmers and scientist with biofuels. our construction workers with build homes and factories. put them back to work. >> i'm going to take advantage our oil, coal, our gas, our renewable. north america will be energy and independent.çó >> watch and engage with c-span

as the presidential campaigns moves towards the october debates. energy policy is likely one of the topics in the first 90 minute debate. foreign the focus of the final debate the 22nd. also watch the vice president candidates debate on thursday the 11th. through election day, coverage of key house and senate races looking at the control of congress following our coverage online at c-span.org. >> i watch c-span because they brung us the news -- bring us the news in unfiltered manner. i don't have to worry about some expert telling me what i should think about it. this is a chance to make your own opinion about what's going on. you got news stations that lean to the left and some claiming to be down the middle, it's hard.

if no one is talking and just the event is going on, you know what's said. >> paul watches c-span on on comcast. brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> senator tom coburn is correcting u.s. credit rate -- credit rating will be down rated in washington. he's not worried about tax increases and budget cuts scheduled to take effect in january. speaking to recent event in wisconsin, the oklahoma republican is focused on medicare. >> thank you so much for coming out this morning. for those of you that i have not met, i'm jim and i'm president of this great organization. we are a public policy organization that was founded in

1962 by congressman's own tom peetried. we're created on the values of abraham lincoln and teddy roosevelt, society with the first major republican organization to support the civil rights act of the 1960s. while in the early 1970s -- today one of main goals of our organization is to promote the ideas and principles that we believe that made our party and3 nation great. these ideas, are keeping america secure, taxes low and having a federal government that's not only smaller but smarter and more accountable to its people. we do this in a number of ways and this breakfast is one of those. before i begin, i like to take a moment to reflect upon the events 11 years ago today that changed all of our lives as we

know it. would you please join me in a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives on 9/11 and those who sacrifice and continue to risk their lives in defense of our nation today.xd thank you very much. if you all happen to have an opportunity to go to new york and you decide to go to ground zero, do it but make sure you do one thing. you have to have tickets so you can go online to do that and it's all about crowd control. the number of folks around this country that go to new york and decide theyñi want to, but you have to have tickets. please make sure that you do that. it's a great opportunity and it'sçó one of the most moving things i've done of late. as for this morning, there are a number of individuals i like to recognize before we start our program. former secretary of

transportation, honorable jim buerhle. secretary of the department of energy, bud albright. from the office of congressman tom, chief of staff, scott miller. thank you all so much for being with us. finally i like to ca4lb your attention to our next upcoming event on thursday september 20th we'll be hosting a breakfast with senator bob corker of tennessee who will be discussinged financial reform legislation and other items being considered before the senate banking housing and urban affairs committee. please note that will be on the other side of the capitol. i hope you can join us for that and as for this morning's breakfast, we are fortunate to be joined by a physician an author and most importantly a fiscal conservative in the senate who is leading the effort to fight our nation's mounting debt. to introduce him is my pleasure

to bring to the podium, president of the healthcare leadership councilñr mary greel. >> good morning. it is my absolute pleasure to introduce senator tom coburn. the two term senator from oklahoma. in an era today of what seems culture of spendingñr in washington, few have done more to restore fiscal restraint than senator coburn. for an early age, he understood the value of a dollar and was able to help grow his small of national prominence before entering medical school. upon coming to washington, this businessman turned physician, successfully used his time in office to provide fiscally responsible solution in an era

lacking such common sense accountability. in fact, during his first term in the senate, no other senator introduced more amendments to build to fight wasteful spending, earning him the reputation of an government watchdog. now his self-imposed term limits in office reinforced his commitment to private sector solutions. it's becoming a valuable symbol against career politicians. to that end, he continues to practice medicine today on a pro bono basis. senator coburn will be discussing his recent book, a plan to stop washington from bankrupting america. senator coburn has met with the members of my organization representing the broad spectrum of healthcare, the healthcare leadership council. he's offered to us very

innovative, health policy solution that will not only improve the quality of healthcare but contain costs. the senator is currently a member of the senate finance committee and comes before us node a -- in a unique position. although the congressional says he wears the epithet of obstructionist like a badge of honor, i view dr. coburn that is a legislature that is working and fighting hard to find solutions to the challenges facing us in america today. please join me in welcoming dr. john coburn. [applause]. ñrñi >> good morning. the society in oklahoma, we call it the ripon society. it's great to be with you. i think i had this pleasure

before. i want to spend some time -- he a discussion with dan cohen at my table about the fiscal cliff and i hope somebody will ask questions about that as we get into it. i wanted to remind you what admiral mike mullen said about six months before he left chairman of joint chiefs of staff. he said the greatest threat to our country is no outside force, it's not china, it's not russia. it is our debt. at face value, that doesn't seem like much. here's theñi leader of the strongest military force the world has ever known. telling america that the number one threat to its existence is its debt. that is profound for a military leader to say that. the president didn't say that.

the head of the joint chiefs of staff said that. which to me, makes it all the more powerful coming from the source of our defense posture. history shown time and again that debt can bring down republics. as a matter of fact, all republics die. if you look at history. name one that hasn't. so the question is can america cheat history? can we cheat history and not fall? let me give you some reminders of what john adams warned. he said democracy never last long. it's waste, exhaust and murders itself. there was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. we're on the cusp of being the

first generation of americans to break a moral bond that has continued in our country since its founding. that moral bond is to create a situation and leave a situation for those that follow us. that enhances their opportunity, enhances their liberty, enhances their freedom so that they combine personal responsibility and hard work. those opportunities can bloom into a flower of abundance for them and their generation that follows. this is first time in history we've ever been where we are. couple points. besides the federal government is twice the it was 11 years ago. clinton's last budget was trillion $630 billion.

we were $3,850,000,000,000 this last year. as a matter of fact our deficit last year was bigger than the government was in total in 15 years ago. consider lincoln's warning before becoming president that kind of sounds the alarm that adams did. lincoln said this, at what point shall we expect approach of danger. by what means shall we fortify against it. shall we expect some military giant to step the ocean and crush at a çóblow. in the thousand years this could

not occur. at what point is the approach of danger to be expected? i answer it if it is ever to reach us, it must spring us amongst us. it cannot come from abroad. we must be its author and finisher. as a nation of free men, we must live through all the time or die by suicide. it's a long winded way of saying exactly the same thing john adams said. so the question for us as a nation is what are we going to do about it? are we going to cheat history? are we going to play the political game? are we going to think short term or we going to make the difficult choices that will set our country back on its feet and create the opportunities and freedom and potential that was

given to us? before you get too depressed, we don't have a problem in front of us that isn't solvable. that's the thing that nobody is focusing on. next week, we'll release $70 billion worth of savings from the pentagon that come out of the pentagon, that have nothing to do with defending this country. think about that for a minute. i can findçó $70 billion in the pentagon that has nothing to do can defending the country. you won't see one troop less, you won't see anything reduced. you won't see major weapons acquisition. i can find $70 billion. if somebody else say they can find another $50 billion. the point is our problems are made more difficult by politics.

our problems are not insolvablei some predictions. we're going to see further downgrades on our debt. i remember phone call i got from the treasury department after i predicted seven days before it was going to happen that we were going to get a downgrade. i was told quit saying that. you can't say that. that hurts us. i said the truth does not hurt us. the truth is the thing that will set us free. the fact is, we do not act responsibly in washington asxd long as we're not addressing the long term problems facing our country. as long as it's about the next election and not the next generation, we are irresponsible. it's already happening if you think about what's going on in

our country. i brought with me a zimbabwe $100 trillion note. worth about 3 cents. that's a zimbabwe real note. think about that for a minute. what's happening right now that's going to impact our kids and it's the way most governments handle the problems they're in? it's called financial pressure. it's occurring right now to every retired couple out there with a home and a 401k, the purchasing value in the last four years in a row have gone down. not counting the recession. just the purchasing value because the net that they can earn versus inflation, they have a real negative net, net negative earnings on their 401k.

what comes from that? the basement of the currency. the federal reserve's balance sheet now is excessive $3.6 trillion. how are we going to sterilize that debt? what's going to happen? what happens when the bondholders of the world lose confidence that we can in fact, repay our debt. historical interest rate on our debt is about 5.85%. we're paying about 1.85% now. 4% times $16 trillion is $640 billion per year in additional interest cost. the time is short for us to fix our problems. the point i would make isñi the solutions are not difficult in terms of figuring out what to do, what is lacking in

washington is leadership. leadership is willing to confront honestly the american people and tell them what the real problems are. come forward with a positivexd solution and attitude that says we in fact can solve these problems. we can protect those that need to be protected. we can keep that moral bond for our kids and grand kids and cheat history. i think we can do it. we're just waiting for the right leaders to stand up and say let's do it. let's think about the future not about now. i won't give you anymore of the negative. i got plenty of it. morning. what i would tell you is that i

see great hope. i hadñi my 7th grandchild over the break. as a matter of fact, first one that ever had my last name and their name. really a proud moment for me. i see that little boy now 4.5 weeks old, i say, what's his future. who's going to shape -- in washington, who's going to take the risks, who's going to take the political risk to do what is necessary to fulfill the great promises that were created when people sacrifice their honor, lives and fortunes to create thisçhyjwt(u country? who will do it? will you be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem? i can't but hope that the message of this next election

cycle is, quit thinking about yourself politicians and start thinking about our country. do what is necessary. you don't have to get all your way. but fix it. if we fix it, combine with the resources that this country has, we will be back on top of the world for three or four more generations just by doing the simple things. it's all fixable. there is a solution. it requires leadership and it requires risk taking. when the political career of individuals in washington is more important than the future of the country, then perhaps adams and lincoln were right. i think we're bigger than that. i think we're stronger than that. i think we're smarter than that. i think our children are worth more than that. thank you all and i'll take any

questions that you have. [applause]. >> hello senator, you mentioned the fiscal cliff. i think everyone is interested in addressing that. comment on that. >> think fiscal cliff is oneñr f the smartest political strategies i ever heard. i don't think really think there is one. let me explain what i mean by that. is there a date in january where things change? yes. in comparison, if nothing happens between now and then, the predictions are as we might slip intoñi a recession. but the real fiscal cliff is we're already bankrupt. the real fiscal cliff is that nobody is thinking, nobody is offering from the white house a solution to medicare. our biggest problem in front of

our country is this demographic shift of which i'm part, the fact that the average couple puts $110,000 in the medicare and takes $350,000 out. you solve that problem tomorrow, we don't need the federal reserve keeping interest rates artificially low. we will be dynamicking and fiscally healthy. there's the real fiscal cliff. what we've done, we've taken the focus and here's short term again and the real problems are all long term. their manifestation comes into short term. they will be much greater in two years now+i if we don't send the signal that we're going to take care of the long term problems, we can fix the fiscal cliff, but it's not going to matter a year from now. interest rates will be around

6%. it's a perfect political strategy to take our eye off what the real ball is. social security is not hard to fix. medicare is very difficult to fix. but it can be fixed. the healthcare decision is a whole other discussion that you can have five societies and not cover it. i thinkçó there's a lot of emphasis on it. i want to remind you, that's all short term thinking. that's all 17 and 18 months or less thinking. we need to be thinking three, four or five years. the short term will take care of itself. if you thinkñr there's any probm with us, if we actually had a solution for medicare tomorrow, you think this economy wouldn't bump? there's $3.8 trillion sitting on

the sidelines now. normally there's about $800 billion in business bank accounts. paul krugman thinks we ought to borrow another trillion dollars and create another stimulus. the stimulus we ought to have is recreate confidence and certainty in our country so some of that $3.8 trillion pops offñi there and gets invested and real investment that creates real jobs. that's how you stimulate the economy. you create certainty and confidence. you have to do that by creating confidence in the long term. i'm not worried about thedot fl cliff. if we are fortunate enough to win, we'll fix that. we'll reform the tax code. people will be able to see through the long horizon that it is once again, safe to put money to work in this country. we'll have a territorial tax

system decision to bring your money home to force our businesses to invest abroad. because we penalize 28% if you bring it home. that's one of the craziest things we're doing. the head of elie lilly, they have hundreds of millions of dollars setting in europe. to bring it home, it's 28%. why would they do that? they invest the money where they are. rather than invest it in this country. >> senator, i understand your point and certainly taxes plays a large role. regulations play a large role too and willingness of business to invest. my favorite statistic, it takes

2.5 times more money per mile to lay a pipeline on top of the ground than it does 7500 feet of water all because of regulatory cost. do you see any path for the congress and senate taking back control of some of the regulatory? >> my hope would be if we are, there's a rains act. i don't know if you familiar with it. what it does -- one of my frustrations as a senator, we write bills but every bill we write, we leave the hard work to the bureaucracies. in order, we don't write what we really intend. we really don't know what we're doing. we don't really write what we intend because we don't have enough information. in other words, we haven't studied the issue well enough to be writing the law in the first

place. by default we give it to administration which change which means the philosophy goes one way orçó the other. we ought to write specifically what we expect into the laws. here's what you will do, here's when you will do to and here's how you will do it. instead of writing a general thing and let the bureaucracy figure it out. they don't follow congressional ikq't, they follow political intent whatever the administration is directing. whether it be conservative or liberals. 4hqj"%uáse because of the lazy congress that wants to be seen doing something right but don't know the issue well enough to do it completely and do it in the correct way. i will never forget, he a conversation with executive in

this country about productivity. about how they try to get more with less every year. there was a certain senator in the room who never heard ofñi te concept. >> [question from the audience] >> the point is being look around at who our elected leaders are and then ask yourself, what their real world experience is outside of politics. it's very easy to figure out how we got where we are today. when the goal next election, everything you do instead of the goal is to secure the future of our country, we have the result that we have today. that's both a republican and democrat problem. what america needs to wake up to and what the americans who have benefited from this country need

to wake up to, it's time for you to serve if you have those broad levels of experience, come and use it in washington and give something back to the country. we have so many people that have so much potential in this country that have real knowledge and real judgment who refuse to serve. i think that's part of a spiritual break down in our country in terms of an obligation to be a great citizen by actually sacrificing some of your time and your reputation. this isn't a position that gives our great reputation. the negatives always outweigh the positive. come and actually serve. 70% of senate never had a job truly outside of politics. it's any wonder we lack judgment and discernment. how do we get there? our founders certainly weren't

that. the first 100 years weren't career politicians. the average length of service was markedly less than two terms in the senate. we've created our own problems because we have an elite political class in both parties and we come from a foreign team of the exact same people. until we put people in office that actually have real world experience, not political experience -- there's nothing wrong with serving. it's not a criticism of those individuals. they have great hearts, great minds and compassion, the fact is they have no real world experience to which to make critical judgments. >> senator, as far as simpson-bowls what do you think criticism of congressman ryan and his opposition?

>> i don't think much of it at all. i was in on all the meetings and i was in conversations with them. they said from the start, unless you dress the biggest problem in front of us, which was mandated not to be addressed, which was medicare, that no matter what happened, they could not support that as a solution. it's not a solution. it's a short term solution. i voted for it to get it on the floor. the fact is, if you don't address it, paul ryan said he'll take the tax changes that we put in that bill. they agreed to that but you have to put medicare reform in. the only way to save medicare is to change it. it is a statistical financial numerical possibility. i will tell you that i believe in less than four years from today, the trust fund will be out of money.

medicare part a. the worse case scenarioñi by th trustees is 2022. because this large group of baby boomers of which i'm a part, are going -- they're holding off surgeries. they're holding off getting things done until they get into medicare. the consumption isçó going to explode. i don't think we will be there. again, i would say, if somebody needs to be criticized, it's the president who appointed the commission, who got a good result and refuse to embrace it. >> i can understand how you might look at what everybody calls a fiscal cliff and see it

not necessarily as the emergency that others do. but, what do you think is going to be the scenario with regard to the sequester itself? is it something that lawmakers have chosen to do as a last resort for their inability to make decisions about where it cut? is it recognition that the sequester is so big and might add a full point to unemployment. is that big enough more the congress and senate and revisit what happened in the budget control. >> i think they ought to revisit it. sequester is a chicken politician's way to solve a problem. just cut everything the same amount. that way you're not responsible for the goodñthings getting cut and you're not responsible to continuing to fund lousy things. no discernment, no knowledge. with just issued a report -- there's 47 job training programs

year. 47, think about that. why in the world do we have 47 job training program. here's what we found, there's not one successful federally run job training program in oklahoma. there's highly successful state job training programs. we have a city in oklahoma has 16,000 people in it and has 4.7% unemployment rate and 17 different job training offices in the city. what our job training programs are a way to employ people in job training. i g]"ñ&q point i'm making is, it is not hard to fix it. if you actually know, in our office nobody comes close to digging all the issues in every

branch of government on all the waste. the problem is, nobody reads it. my kleagle oh -- colleagues don't know it. i'll mail it to every one of them and they'll have a staffer. there's a constituency for every program that's out there and there's election coming. as soon as this election is over, there's another election coming. i can't dare offend anybody. i decided i'm going to offend everybody because our children are worth it. my new grandson is worth it. for me to not beçó liked but to actually call the truth what it is. at least awrivñ third of what te federal government does and at least a trillion dollars what it does has no positive effect on this society what so ever. it could go away and you'd see

growth like crazy in this country. that's the truth. i can show it to you. but nobody wants to look. nobody that cast a vote wants to look. hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, as long as i get elected. >> [question from the audience]. >> let's talk honestly, the defense department to the republicans as the same thing medicare is to democrats. first of all, the cut in the pentagon is a cut from expected growth. it's $468 billion and expected growth they're not going to get. you cut half trillion dollars. if you look at the budget

control act, pentagon spending actually goes up. washington speak and republicans speak about the pentagon. i guarantee you, we can have a better defense with less money. if we hold the pentagon accountable. nobody wants to holdñi the pentagon accountable because there's jobs in their districts that depend on the pentagon noti being accountable. ask yourself a question, of the $350 billion in weapons procurement that we have under contract right now in development, why is $150 billion of it going to be wasted? where is the adults in the room? why is it at the pentagon when they will spend $24 billion on i.t. this year and $12 billion of it will go down the drain?

the federal government going to spend $46 billion and $23 billion of it will go down the drain. where are the adults? who got fired because something different work? nobody. there's no accountability -- it's not president's fault, that is congress's responsibility. congress has failed miserably. both under republican controlxd and democrat control. >> you said there are solutions and their available and all it needs leaders. we can't wish leaders in, in the room that you have now, who are the leaders? >> richard, saxby chambliss, pat

toomey, rob portman. dick durbin is a leader. he actually knows that we're in trouble. that's real revelation. dick is actually working hard to try to come to a bipartisan solution as is mark warner, michael bennett. there are real leaders. the question is, will they take the political risk to get out there when we come -- will they lead to get us to a bipartisan solution. i think they will. but there has to be leadership from the president to says, we need to do this. the american people are grown ups. this country has done hard things lots of times. this country never does hard things unless they are called to do it. we haven't had anybody call us to do it. nobody explained the predicate of what's at risk. the american people need to be

talked to like adults. tell them the truth. instead of saying -- there's nothing wrong with losing an election. if you're standing onçó principe and you lose, you advance the debate and the positive things that come out from losing an election and advancing the debate, that's why i offer amendment pips know i'm not going to win. i offer them to advance the debate and to increase the knowledge across the country on specific issues. i think people will step up. >> [question from the audience].

>> if you go back to the reagan tax reforms and you look at what happened economically to our country -- i was in my medical office and i got my tax bill in 1986, i was really mad at reagan. lot of my deductions went away. what happened in the next four years in our country? we averaged 4.6% real gdp growth with major tax reform.

75% of the mortgage tax deductions making over $100,000 a year. look at canada. canada has no mortgage interest deduction.

their home ownership rate is 8% higher than ours. did it work? we ought to be asking fundamental questions. i am not saying yes or no. let's talk about who gets the real benefits from it and what does it cost? if you want state sales tax, who gets the benefit? let's make an informed decision about how we reform the tax code. whatever we do, let's create certainty and confidence in the future and let's quit having the highest corporate tax rate in the world. cutting ouroing is own legs off. do what igoing to want to do, which is deadline it and -- here is the day we

bury the 99,000 pages of the code. just for a moment, at $300 billion a year is what we spent to pay people to figure out what our taxes are. if you took that same $300 billion a year and put it in the economy, you get a 1.6 multiplier effect. you gain $120 billion in gdp a year just by reforming the tax code. that is 1%. that is 1 million jobs. the financial repression we're under right now is 103.4% debt to gdp ratio.

instead of growing at 1.8%, we would be growing at 3. you can talk energy, we are sending $300 billion to the middle east and venezuela year. 300 built -- $300 billion of our energy. why don't we burn our it -- why don't we burn hours instead of theirs? that is a no-brainer. regardless of your position on climate. we will still burnt. why don't we use hours? -- ours? it makes no sense. you have $600 billion that you can put back into the economy tomorrow. talk about stimulus, that is without even changing rates. our problems are not hard to figure out. politics gets in the wake of

them. it has been great to be with you, thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, senator. [inaudible] >> people really like to see where politicians views and have shifted over the years. people like to see whether mitt romney in 1994 was campaigning for welfare reform, against welfare reform, abortion. 2002, 2007. people like to see how these politicians have devolved. -- evolved. >> i have tried to think, he has changed so often, why does he

find it so difficult to come down on one side of an issue, floats this between both issues? >> does it help that there is a governor named rod blagojevich if your name is barack obama? >> the best way to describe its is this a viral beating heart of the internet. >> sunday night at 8:00 on c- span. >> let's else be cautiously optimistic. -- let us be cautiously optimistic. something is happening that is great. the awakening is the weakening of the arab mind, the intellectual revolution. it is possible to get rid of

dictators. this is irreversible. this is something which is a legacy, a shift which is very promising for the future. >> oxford professor talks about the causes behind the arab spring and the role is long will play in the future of the countries involved in this sunday at 3:00. >> the washington post as associate editor has written a book about how the president and congress fail to past economic programs. it is called "the price of politics." >> both chambers of congress return to session next week, but not until wednesday. the house gobbles in at 2:00

eastern for legislative work -- gavels in at 2:00 eastern for legislative work. a package of five energy and environmental bills aimed at boosting energy production and job creation. fall the house live on c-span. the senate at 10:00 to continue work on a veterans' jobs dealt with a procedural vote scheduled for noon. the house passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government for six months starting october 1. live coverage, as always, on c- span2. >> this afternoon, president obama, vice president biden, and hillary clinton and leon panetta attended the transfer of remains for the men who were killed in this week's attack in libya. those men included chris

stevens, sean smith, glen doherty and tyrone woods. this is 35 minutes.

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silence. let us pray. gracious god, on behalf of a grateful nation and in the presence of grieving family members and colleagues, we welcome home for the final time ambassador chris stevens, sean smith, glen doherty, and tyrone woods. we give you thanks for the lives and the service of these men who wanted nothing more than to make a difference in the lives of other people. to bring justice and freedom to others, who possessed not only character and resolve, but courage and good will. we mourn their loss. bless the memories of these men

through those who knew and loved them, especially their families, for whom we ask your comfort, your divine care, and your piece in this difficult time. on this occasion, we continue to pray for our nation and its leaders. we asked your blessing on all who served on the military and civilian. we pray for our nation's people. we pray for the defeat of the terror and evil that seems to plague our planet. we pray earnestly for peace. creator of all, let's like perpetual shine upon chris, sean, glen, and tyrone. amen. you may be seated.

ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you the secretary of state, hillary clinton. >> thank you very much, a chaplain. mr. president, mr. vice president, secretary panetta, family members, members of the state department family, ladies and gentlemen, today, we bring home four americans who gave their lives for our country and our values. to the families of our fallen colleagues, i offer our most

heartfelt condolences and deepest gratitude. sean smith joined the state department after six years in the air force. he was respected as an expert on technology by colleagues in baghdad, montreal, and the hague. he enrolled in correspondence courses at penn state and had high hopes for the future. sean leaves behind a loving wife, heather, two young children, and scores of grieving family, friends, and colleagues. that is just in this world.

online, in the virtual world that he helped to create, he is also being mourned by countless competitors, collaborators, and gamerse who shared his passion. tyrone woods, is known to most as rone, spent two decades as a navy seal, serving multiple tours in iraq and afghanistan. since 2010, he protected american diplomatic personnel in dangerous posts from central america to the middle east. he had the hands of a healer as well as the arms of a warrior. earning distinction as a registered nurse and certified paramedic.

our hearts go out to to his wife and his three sons. along with his grieving family, friends, and colleagues. glen doherty was also a former steel and an experienced paramedic. -- seal an inexperienced paramedics. he died protecting his colleagues. he was employed to some of the most dangerous places on earth, including iraq and afghanistan, always putting his life on to safeguard other americans. our thoughts and prayers are with his father, his mother,

his brother, and sister, and their grieving families, friends, and colleagues. i was honored to know ambassador chris stevens. i want to thank his parents and siblings who are here today for sharing chris with us and with their country. what a wonderful gift you gave us. over his distinguished career in the foreign service, he won friends to the united states in far-flung places. he made those people's hopes his own. during the revolution in libya, he risked his life to help protect the libyan people from a tyrant. he gave his life helping them build a better country. people loved to work with him.

as he rose through the ranks, they loved to work forehand. he was known not only for his courage, but for his smile. goofy, but contagious. for his sense of fun and that california cool. in the days since the attack, so many libyans, including the ambassador, who is with us today, have expressed their sorrow and solidarity. one young woman, her head covered and her eyes haunted with sadness, held up a handwritten sign that said " thugs and killers do not represent a benghazi or islam. " the president of the palestinian authority, who worked closely with chris sent me a letter of remembering his energy and integrity and

deploring ' an act of ugly terror." many others from across the middle east and africa have offered similar sentiments. this has been a difficult week for the state department's and for our country. we have seen the heavy assault on our post in benghazi bad took lives of those brave men. we have seen rage and violence directed at american embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do it. it is hard for the american people to make sense of that because it is senseless. it is totally unacceptable. the people of egypt, libya, yemen, and tunisia did not trade

the tyranny of the dictator for the tyranny of a mob. reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts. we will, under the president's leadership, i keep taking steps to protect our personnel around the world. there will be more difficult days ahead, but it is important that we do not decide of the fundamental fact that america must keep leading the world. we owe it to those four men to continue the long, hard work of diplomacy. i am enormously proud of the men

and women of the state department. i am proud of all those across our government, civilian and military ally, who represented erech of broad. -- who represent america abroad. if the last few days teach us anything, let it be this. this worked, and the men and women who risked their lives to do it, or at the heart of what makes america great and good. we will wipe away our tears, stiffen our spine, and face the future undaunted. and we will do it together. protecting and helping one another, it just like sean,

tyrone, glen, and chris always did. may god bless them and grant their families peace and solace. may god continue to bless the united states of america. of's we have a great honor the injured -- let me have a great honor of introducing someone who came to the state department earlier this week to grieve with us. he understands and values the work that these men were doing for our country. the president of the united states.

>> the scripture teaches us greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. glen doherty never shied from adventure. he believed he could make a difference. he served with distinction in iraq and afghanistan. in benghazi, he laid down his life. today, glen is home. tyrone woods devoted 20 years of his life to the seals.

the consonant quiet professional. rone also served in iraq and afghanistan. in benghazi, he was far from dorothy and tyrone jr. and he laid down his life, protecting his friends. today he is home. sean smith lived to surf. new the perils of this calling from his time in baghdad. there, far from home, he thought of heather, cement, and nathan, and he laid down his life in service to us all.

today sean is home. chris stevens is everything we wanted as an ambassador, as everyone has come to see. he arrived in libya on a cargo ship. how he believed in libya and its people and how they love him libya, hethey're in lay down his bike -- his life for him friends, libyan and americans, and for us all. today, chris is home. four americans, four trips. they loved this country and chose to serve it and served it well. they had a mission and gave it

believed in it. they knew the danger and they accepted it. they did not simply embrace the american ideal. they lived it. they embodied in it. the courage, the hope, and the idealism, that fundamental american believe that we can lead this world a little better than before. that is who they were, and that is who we are. if we want to truly honor their memory, it is who we must always be. i know this awful loss, the terrible images of recent days, the pictures we're seeing again today, have caused someone to

question this work, and there is no doubt these are difficult days. in moments such as this, so much anger and violence, even the most hopeful among us must wonder. but amid all the images of this week, i think of the libyans who took to the streets with homemade signs expressing their gratitude to an american who believed in what they could achieve together. i think of the man with this sign in english, and message he wanted us all to hear, that said, "chris stevens was a friend to all libyans. chris stevens was a friend." that was the message these for patriots said. that is the message that each of you sends every day, civilians, military, to people in every corner of the world, that

america is a friend, that we care not just about our own country, our own interests, but asut therirs, that even voices of suspicion and mistrust seek to divide countries for one another, the united states of america will never retreat in the world. we will never stop working for the dignity and freedom that every person deserves, whatever their creed, whatever their faith. that is the essence of american leadership. that is the spirit that set us apart from other nations. this was their work in benghazi, and this is the work we will carry on. to you, their families and colleagues, to all americans, know this -- \ their sacrifice will never be forgotten.

we will bring to justice those who took them from us. we will stand fast against the violence on our diplomatic missions. we will do everything in our power to protect americans serving overseas, whether that means increasing security at diplomatic posts, working with hosts who have an obligation to provide security, to making it clear that justice will come to those who are americans. and most of all, even in our grief, we will be resolute, for we are americans. we hold our heads high. we know that because of these patriots, cousin of the you, this country that we love will always shine as a light unto the world.

greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. the flag they served under now carries them home. they got less the memory of these men who laid down their lives for us all. they got watch over your families and all who love them, and may god bless these united states of america. >> before the benediction, we will stand together for the playing of the national anthem, as we render honor to the nation that these men of love and for which they died.

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let us pray. almighty god, creator of us all, and lover of the human race, we commend to you our brothers chris and sean and glen and tyrone.

if you're merciful and receive them. deliver them from fear, strengthen then in your presence, and give them your peace. amen. ["america the beautiful" plays]

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>> we can keep investing in wind and solar. our construction workers and build homes and factories that waste less energy, put them back to work. >> i will take advantage of our oil, gas, nuclear, renewals. north america will be energy independent within a years. >> watch with c-span as the campaigns move toward the october debate. energy policy will be the topic on october 3. questions take center stage on

tuesday, october 16, and foreign policy, the focus on october 22. watch the vice-presidential debate on october 11. follow our coverage on c-span, seized and radio, and online at c-span.org. >> it's look at what the emancipation proclamation actually said. the proclamation freeze insulate peoples in those states or parts of states still in rebellion on january 1, 1863. that is not free everybody. just those states or parts of the state still in rebellion. there are several parishes in louisiana where slavery still exists because the unit army it did not have control of that area. there are parts of virginia where the union army has a foothold and slavery still exists in this area is.

>> lincoln issued an early andsion of the im emancipation proclamation before the battle of antietam. take your questions on the battle and repercussions of the single bloodiest day of fighting in american history, sunday, live from antietam national battlefield, at noon eastern on c-span3. >> i watch c-span because they bring us the news in an unfiltered manner. i can watch whenever national event is going on on c-span and i do not have to worry about an expert trying to tell me what i should take about it. this is the chance to see but is going on and make your own opinion. you have news stations who lead to the left, right, and some claim they want to be in the middle, but it is hard. if there is no one talking and just the event is going on, you can make your own opinion about

what is happening. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1989, brought to you by your television provider. >> both chambers of congress return to session less -- next week, but not until wednesday. the house gavels in at 2:00 p.m. eastern for legislative works come up with votes after 6 rot 33 the agenda, a resolution of disapproval and at blocking the obama administration's recent changes to the welfare law. also expected, a package of five energy and environmental bills aimed at boosting energy production and job creation. pilothouse live here on c-span. -- follow that house live here on c-span. the senate continues to work on a veterans' jobs bill with a procedural vote.

also a 2013 federal spending. the house passed a continuing resolution that will fund the government until next year. >> national correspondent for mcclatchy newspapers. >> the senate agreed on amendments and they plan to vote on the 19th. they will take two boats off for the jewish holiday, and they are supposed to finally begin writing this. >> knew it had objections to it? >> there were several reasons. if you want the cynical view, the republicans were not on to give democrats anything, and democrats control the senate. the bill is meant to increase hiring and job training for veterans, particularly those who

served in afghanistan and iraq, and part of the problem was the republican said there are other things the government should be doing. they said this is a political exercise that they do not necessarily need the government's help. senator rand paul was a critic of this. he said he just bought the bill entirely for various reasons. he wanted to stop american aid to pakistan until they freed the physician who helped the united states find osama bin laden. this tied up the senate all week. they appear to have reached an agreement, and will vote on wednesday, the 19th. >> that house finished up their work on the continued resolution and it goes to the senate now. what is the consensus on when the senate might get to it? >> they were talking about wednesday, thursday, friday of next week. the senate wants to leave and

campaign at the end of next week. they probably will. there will not be a huge controversy over the six-month extension. there will be heated debate and the sides will talk about how we have to do something about the debt and deficit. they will say they will do it in march. >> with their eyes on the exit for the election, what are the key items that will be left before the election, and when the comeback in the land-duck session, what has to be done? >> start with the bush tax cuts. they expire at the end of 2012. if not extend it, the top income tax rate goes up to 39.6%, and there is a second rate that kicks in there. rates across the board goes up. the obama administration would like to keep current rates for those earning less than 250,000 for families, $200,000 for individuals to alliterates goes

up for the rest. that will be an enormous battle. we expect that will not be resolved until we beat new year's eve. that is number one. then you have the sequester in january. that is the automatic spending cuts that the white house talked about friday and said disaster was looming if these cuts go into effect. there is about, and it is fashion a budget, a plan that would avoid these cuts. will that happen? possibly. both sides are motivated for all kinds of reasons. i think we will see me come november and december, all kinds of very intense, sirius late- night, early-morning resolutions. >> david lightman a look ahead in congress. they give to the update. >> thank you for having me. >> next, the senate sites

committee holds a hearing on the future of nasa's mars rover. we will hear testimony from scientists leading the mission. it is a little more than two hours. >> i was waiting to see to see the arrival time of senator hutchinson, so what we will do is go ahead and get some of the introductions done so that when she arrives we will be able to get right into the meat the hearing. i want to thank everybody for being here in what is going to be an extraordinary hearing. it is interesting that today is the 50th anniversary of president kennedy's speech at rice university, where he said we choose to go to the moon. and that bold challenge would be

met within seven years. and when neil stepped down that lunar landerhat ladder on to the surface, it was one of the most gripping moments -- it was an event that reminded us how triumph can unite people of our nation and, indeed, i happen to be a lieutenant -- i happened to be a lieutenant at the time of broad, and i saw that unification of the people of planet earth at that time. and we reflected on such triumphs earlier this summer when curiosity landed on mars, and we reflected on the

ingenuity and talent that is required for those extraordinary achievements a few weeks ago when, sadly, we heard of neil armstrong's pass in. tomorrow morning at the national cathedral, the country will bid farewell to one of our most cherished here is. and it is with his spirit in our hearts president kennedy's vision in our minds, that we overallday at nasa's exploration program. the whole world was captivated by that harrowing landing of the rover. i have seen it. it is as big as a volkswagen. and we continue to be

fascinated by the amazing high- definition images that we are getting back from the rover's landing site. we are fortunate today to have members of curiosity boss team to kick off our hearing with a mission update. will hear from dr. john grunsfeld, dss yet dministration for nationsa's science mission. the marsi, exploration director, dr. john grotzinger are, the project scientist for the address the mission, and after that update, we will move on to our witness panel, where we will examine the progress of nasa's exploration program under the nasa

authorization bill that was passed in 2010, particularly as it relates to future human missions to mars. so our witnesses include doctors did the -- dr. steven squryes, dr. charles cakennel, chairman of the national academies of space studies, and mr. jim maser, president of pratt and whitney rocketdyne, a company that does a lot of things, but specializes in rocket propulsion technologies. i want to welcome all of you here today.

would you all -- dr. grunsfeld, would you like to introduce 13? >> certainly. i will introduce to my left, dr. li, and we will work from there, but thank you very much for inviting us here, because this is a spectacular result that we had a successful landing of curiosity on the surface of mars. but hopes and dreams for this mission were that even just the seven minutes of terror leading up to a successful landing when be a significant -- as significant for kids today as neil armstrong's landing on the moon was for me, leading me to study science and math and eventually to become an astronaut and now an associate administrator at nasa this famous words of president kennedy, said we do these things, we do these things now because they are easy, but because we they are hard.

because of track -- sides we do things that are at little bit hard, but things that many things -- many say are impossibly hard. that is what comes out from people who are excited about exploration. there is no more qualified team and no more team that is more excited about exploration right now than the team that is driving the rover on the surface of mars, the triassic rover. with that i would like it introduce dr. fuk li. >> before i turn to senator hutchison, why don't you introduce some of your team in the audience. >> thank you. there are two additional members of the river team who are with us. we have the chief engineer for the project, who was responsible for resolving a lot of technical

problems on the spacecraft in development. also, we have the lead of our telecom uplink. we try to talk to the river, she is always involved. >> so she is the driver? thank you. let me turn to my colleague, and before i do, let me say that may well be the last science and space hearing for senator hutchinson, because, unfortunately, she has chosen to retire after a very long and distinguished public service record. i can tell you that i mourn the fact that she is retiring, because kay and i have demonstrated how you pass

legislation when it should not be partisan, and where there was no daylight between the two of us. thus, in the midst of what was to malt back in 2010, we were able to pass the nasa authorization bill unanimously out of the senate, first unanimously out of this committee, and then with a 3/4 vote out of the house of representatives at 11:00 at night on the last night of the session. >> i cannot say enough good things about kay and her leadership and her passion for america's space program. so with that, let me turn to you, senator hutchison. >> well, thank you very much, mr. chairman. i'm so looking forward to hearing from you. i had actually hoped we might have one more hearing because i do want to look toward the

future and i think one of the things that we have been missing here is the protection of the future, not just always going as far as we have to go right now, but making sure that we look to the future. and when the curiosity landed, i saw for the first time really in a long time that enthusiasm of america just seeing the precision of that long, long trip and the landing. it showed that we really can conquer so much more and so i wanted to have this hearing and the chairman wanted to have this hearing to highlight what is the future and maybe we can eke out one more hearing, but we have been a wonderful

partnership in assuring that nasa is not undercut so severely that we can't keep our preeminence. if you would just give me one moment, i want to say that this also is the 50th anniversary of president kennedy's speech at rice university where he laid out the wonderful vision and i would just like to take one little quote from there. he said, "but why, some say, the moon? why choose this as our goal and they may well ask why climb the highest mountain, why 35 years ago fly the atlantic, why does rice play texas in football?" and then he goes on to say, "we choose to good to the moon, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, because because they are

hard. " and that inspiration that president kennedy gave us must be continued and that is it has been my goal and i hope that as we are looking toward that next step beyond low earth orbit on to other parts of our space including mars, that you will help us fashion that vision and so thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for all you do in this regard. i will end by saying that tomorrow we're going to honor the first man who stepped on the moon and i know we both plan to be there because neil armstrong stood up last year when he, too, was worried that we might be sacrificing the future for the present and as

shy as he was about publicity, he took a stand and that, i think, made a huge difference in the course that we have been able to take. so with that, i want to hear from our witnesses. thank you. >> dr. lee. >> thank you, mr. chairman for giving us this chance to talk to you and give you a short update on where we are with curiosity. before we do that, i would like to say my deep gratitude for your support that has allowed us to develop, fly, and land this rover a little more than a month ago. the support that we have gotten in the past decade and are getting now has created three significant capabilities in the nation. the first is aet of strong scientists. many of the scientists are working in universities across the nation and many of them are working with john in the day-to-day operation of the curiosity rover telling it where to go and what to do.

the second is to put out in a preeminent position for the technological know how of how to land on a different planet. looking back at the sojourn and rover in 1997. it was 20 pounds. today's curiosity is 2,000 pounds, the size of a small car. this increasing capability is really unique to america. finally, it finally put us to the forefront of advanced robotic technologies to operate a rover millions of miles away from earth in a martian environment that is cold, sometimes we don't know what it is and sometimes it's unfriendly to us. so with that, i like to just go back to the landing night and show a video that is about two videos long and show you the landing event. we were clearly very excited and wanted to share that excitement one more time. when curiosity went into the martian atmosphere, it was enclosed in a capsule to protect it. when it went into the atmosphere, it moved at about

13,000 miles per hour. the kinetic energy of that capsule is like several hundred formula one racecars. the shields slowed the capsule down and this video starts the next stage when we start to deploy the parachute. i'm going to start the video. >> mach 1.7. parachute is deployed. >> this six of the or bital flying overhead. >> it has separated, we're down to 90 meters per second at 6.5 kilometers and descending. standing by for separation. we are in

>> we are descending. >> he remains strong. touchdown confirmed. [applause] [chanting] ♪ >> the wills of curiosity have blazed the trail for human footprint on mars. this is an amazing achievement.

history was made on earth. the successful landing marks what is an unprecedented technological tour de force. it will stand as a point of pride bar into the future. [applause] >> i would like to turn this over to the professor of neurology -- geology. they show a lot of promise for future science discovery. it can only be made when we are on the surface of mars. >> thank you very much. >> i am have initial signs and

some fun pictures. press this one. here is our landing site. you see it way out in space. you can see a lot of big craters around there. the one that we chose to as a mountain in the middle, mount sharp as it's known known after a tie peering geologist. if you -- pioneering geologist. you can see mount sharp. the area represented by the crater is a little bit larger than the state of connecticut and a little bit smaller than the state of new jersey. it's an enormous area that we have potentially for exploration. our goal, you can see the landing ellipse just right here and then that's the spot that we landed on and our goal is to do some exploration around in this area for the next month or two and then begin the long trek that will eventually take us into the foothills and up the flanks of mount sharp where we believe there is evidence of water, once interacted there and could be the very target

we're looking for. to give you a sense of how bold this goal is, you can see mount rainier there which is smaller than mount sharp. mount sharp, its elevation is greater than any pointan in the lower 48 states including mount whitney. you can see it's a tad lower than the highest mountain in the u.s., mount mckinley there. this is looking after we landed, one of our first color images that gives a sense of just how dramatic the landscape is. this is looking toward the crater rim, not toward mount sharp, but the crater rim. we love this photo, those of us who teach geology out in the west, we often take students to the death valley area. you look out across toward the mouthans. you see l.a. smog coming in there. it looks really familiar. it seems like a very comfortable place for us. we love this landing site.

we have a laser onboard that the public has really are enjoyed. we have looked forward to this a lot. it allows us to reach 10 feet away and zap a rock. we are doing more detailed work and in fact, when we do that, this is what you see. there is a little scare bar here on the right. just a couple millimeters. the dot that you see here is less than a millimeter. you felt if the laser zapped you, it would tickle you a little bit. that's what actually happens. what the rest of the world actually thinks is this. they're just having a great time. the people, if you look on the internet, they love this mission and they're really enjoying it. this to me is really one of our great moments. this is our first footprints on mars. you look back to the upper right, this is where the rover landed. these are the one, two, three, four marks made by the thrusters as they impinged on the surface and blew the soil

away. here you see wheel treadmarks where they begin. it tells us about our future on this mission and where we landed successfully. we're now driving away from that place. it might be the last time we ever see it that well, we get further away, but we will never forget this image. here we are now looking forwards mount sharp which is our ultimate december destination. it's a 360-degree panorama. you can see the same one, two, three, four blast marks there. the elevation change from this point up to the top of mount sharp, it's blown up here is on the order of 3 1/2 miles high. so it's a tremendous goal that we're trying to strive towards here and exploring at least the base of that mountain. and when you get up close, this is another one of the images. it's my favorite. i believe it's probably the team's favorite image. if you look at the foothills which are about six miles away, there is a little black rock

right here which is blown up in this box here. that rock is the size of the rover. we're not going to look back towards it. we see it now and we imagine our future. what will happen as we blaze a trail going up these valleys and look around the corner. the team is filled with wonder and the people following the mission are filled with wonder as we look towards this spectacular area. finally, i want to finish with an image that is two days old. we have 17 cameras on this mission. one of them reaches out from the end of the arm and can look back towards the rover. the principal investigator who built that camera put a penny on the rover because geologists do this all the time on earth. we need a scale. we pull it out of our pocket. we rest it gently on the rock and we take a picture of it. it's a standard practice for us. this symbol for us has so much depth to it. it's the great thing that this country has achieved through

your support to be able to have this mission succeed and even be able to see this image. i on behalf of the 406 scientists and all of the engineers, probably 1,000 people currently working on this project want to thank you for the support. the last thing i want to point out is something that history will take note of. the year here is 1909. the penny was embedded with the anticipation that we would launch in 2009. we were not able to. we hit a lot of obstacles along the way. we needed support and it came from you and it came from nasa and we are ever so grateful for that because we got where we wanted to be. so thank you. >> tell us about when you put the packages together and you send it up there, how many minutes do you say it takes to transmit to mars? >> right now, it takes about 15 minutes to go one way from

earth, mars, and from mars back. >> tell us about how you go about planning what that package of instructions is going to tell the rover to do. >> ok, maybe, john, you can describe one day in the life of the rover. >> ok, one day in the life of the rover starts with us working on mars time. because mars has a slightly different orbit, it's 24 hours, 39 minutes, we have to adjust every day. it gets jet lagged by 40 minutes. we get up. the first thing we do is we see the data that arrives from the spacecraft back down to earth. the science team looks at the data, engineers look at the data. we quickly assess what is there. we see if it matches our plans from the previous day about what we want to do next. then we go ahead and it results in probably two hours of tactical decision-making where we come up with a list of

observations that we would like the rover to be commanded to do. then we go through another meeting where those observations are confirmed to actually fit within the block of time, energy, and data that is available as the three resources that restrict our behavior. then we go through a process where the activities are all vetted amongst another group of engineers that come on a second shift and then eventually another six hours later or so, these are all confirmed, vetted, cleared, and then somebody pushes the button that radiation the -- radiates the command sequence up to the rover. >> in your exploration to determine if there was water there, what is the process by which you do that? are you looking for chemical composition of the soil and rocks? >> it's a mixture of both analytical chemistry and also

observations with the cameras and through this, we're able to merge these observations together, much like what was done on m.e.r., but now when we find anything that looks like that it was a rock or soil that formed in an aqueous environment, we can dig much deeper to find out if this environment could support life, had life ever existed on the planet. >> just to follow up. we always hear that the most important thing that we could find is that there might be evidence of water which then might lead to some thought that there was some kind of life. my question is sort of on the same line as senator nelson. if you found something that appeared that it might have been formed with a water or

aqueous atmosphere, will you then be able to, what all can you tell? can you tell how long ago it was? can you tell, is there anything in that that would have, would also indicate life or not or where the water would have come from or any -- what else can you learn if you think there is a water component? >> what we would be able to do is with our increased capability on m.s.l., we really get a sense for what kind of environment it was specifically that the water was present in. was it there for a long period of time? we'll be able to do that a little bit better than we have in the past. mostly we get a really good chemical assessment of how not only the water was present, but

whether or not the environment could preserve organic compounds which very important for us as a science community because when you stop short and ask the question about can you ever hope to some day find evidence for life on marches, you fish have to look for the calling cards, at least traces if you will. we call them chemo fossils, little bits of chemical evidence that say this is the kind of place you should go back to and look in more detail. our hope is if we find bits of chemical evidence, this would be a rich record. this would be the place you would want to go back to and do sample return. you want to go to progressively higher levels in your analysis. this is just the way we do it on earth. you go out to the field. there are lots of difficult rocks to look at. you don't know which one. you zoom in on it. it isn't processed until you

bring something back to the lab and know that you found something significant. >> will you be able to tell how long ago it became extinct or the water went away? >> yeah, we have the benefit of the apolo astronauts who brought rocks back to the earth from the moon that calibrated the crater rate. we kind of apply that to mars. we have a rough sense of how old the rocks are. in the crater, 3 and 4 billion years old. the harder question is to really ask if we see evidence for water, how long was that water around for. we do have an instrument that if things go in our direction, it's a long shot, we might actually be able to date the rock that's there and get a sense for how old that water was there. >> how fast, you're talking about an area bigger than

connecticut. how fast can the curiosity move so that it can cover the amount of land that you're trying to cover in the time that you have ? >> this is a great opportunity for me to talk about just mention briefly how important the mars program is. it's a process with roferse with orb ters. we have maps with where we think the good stuff is. we pick the landing site and we move the ellipse down in there. we move it close to a place where the orbit is really good. i think we're a few 100 meters away from a place we feel comfortable we can show with the rover was formed in water. after we explore that for a while, we'll take that long drive, and it could take half a year to nine months to get to

the base of mount sharp, but then we have another series of opportunities there. so i think we have got an exploration portfolio with many different options in there. we have just had a of serendipity. it wasn't total look that we found this special place. i think we'll be strong out of the gates here. >> last question. is there a time limit in which the rover will be effective and the computers all work, or do you have a fairly unlimited amount of time? >> well, we tested the spacecraft to deliver a two-year mission. in comparison, m.e.r. was built to go three months and we're going on 8 1/2 years. after two years, the warranty wears off according to the manufacturer, but we're looking forward to a real long mission after that, too, i hope. >> it could be years that you will keep roving around and

poking? >> yeah, we hope so. >> good. thank you. >> as a matter of fact, curiosity can greet the human crew when they land. [laughter] >> do you have any opinion as we try to develop the technologies and the life support systems that would take us to mars in the 2030's? do we need a sample return mission first? just your opinion. >> my opinion. >> your opinion. >> i think the architecture that the mars sample return program has laid out in the decadal survey that we as a community fully embrace is the right step to take to get us on the way to putting humans on mars. you must have this capability to land something on the surface of mars and get it back

off again. and if the technology demonstration for that human step is to bring back some rocks from a carefully chosen place, wele be all of the richer for it. >> we want to thank you. this is an exciting update. congratulations, again, on making the country proud and seeing you all jump up and down was a delightful sight. thank you on behalf of a grateful nation. let's call up the second panel.

>> we have dr. steven squires who is the professor of as storm any at cornell, charles charles kenell, chair of the space studies board of the national academies and mr. jim maicer, president of pratt and whitney. dr. squires, we'll start with you. >> all right, well, senator nelson, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear here today. my name is steve squires and my title is golden smith professor of astronomy at corn knell university. my central focus of the nasa authorization act of 2010 was the development of two crucial and highly capable elements of a deep space exploration system. nasa's development of both

s.l.a. and owe ryon is underway, crucial milestones, successful test firings, cryogenic upper stage and the delivery of the command module to kennedy space center. what will the vehicles be used for? president obama has called for sending humans to an asteroid by 2025, to mars orbit and to the surface of mars subsequently. they're grand goals and broadly consistent with the goals that were consistent in the 2010 authorization act. i see two possible areas of concern. one is that a pay as you go approach can result in slow progress if funding levels are not adequate. there has been no human rated launch system in nasa's history that has had a flight rate as low as one that is projected. with such a low flight rate, it could be challenging to keep teams sharp and mission ready and to maintain program momentum. another is that the s.l.s. orion combination was intended to carry out missions to

important destinations beyond low earth or bit by myself. an asteroid mission needs hardware cape cabble for support in deep space for many months. a lune i can't remember mission requires a lander. there is no funding in the development. nasa's budget today is insufficient to carry out the administration's plan on the stated schedule. s.l.s. and owe ryon will be highly capable and their development is progressing very well. they're part of the picture. without the means to develop the missing pieces of the puzzle, a decade from now, nasa can't do more than apolo 8's mission to orbit the moon more a half a century later. i agree with an act that a long-term objective for human exploremation of space should be the explotion of mars. in my view, it should be the long-term view objective. i also believe that robotic

mission should serve as precursors to exploreation to collect data and to lay the scientific foundation on which exploration will be built. in a recent survey that i chaired, the highest priority flagship mission identified was a mars rover that would initiate a campaign to return samples from the surface of mars. unfortunately, nasa has been unable to follow this n.r.c. recommendation because of deep proposed cuts in the 2013 budget. the mission would have been carried out in partnership with the european space agency, but that partnership has not come to fruition because of these cuts. with such deep cuts, the investigation of mars that should provide the underpinnings for future exploration by humans is in jeopardy. the act of 2010 provided the agency with a clear set of goals and priorities. the administration has also articulated its own vision. these two sets of guidance are

not dramatically different. together they call for more than the agency can do with the budget it currently has. a mismatch between objectives and resources is the reason that a crucial piece is missing from our development of a robust capability for human exploration of deep space. it's the reason we have seen deep cuts to the program. this mismatch could be corrected by making some we could eliminate for what some things that nasa does to make room to focus on things was to accomplish. that would require a national consensus on priorities for nasa. alternatively, the budget could be increased. i realize that could be difficult in a constrained budget environment. a possible approach would be to broaden nasa's ability by forging international partnerships. as it has been done successfully for the international space

station. we hope for collaboration. international collaboration is a pack that could hold some potential for bridging the gap between what nasa's been asked to do and what its funding allows it to do. thank you. >> dr. kennel. >> thank you for the invitation to testify. i have some remarks i would like to submit for the record. my topic is leadership. let me introduce to i am. -- who i am. i am chairman of the space studies board and a professor and director of the scripps institution of oceanography. i am proud to say that my predecessor as director was on the platform at rice university when president kennedy made his

inspiring speech. i must say, scripps cannot accept rice playing football. nonetheless, curiosity teaches us that we have set a goal that is extremely difficult to achieve it, but nasa beat the odds. i will talk about goal setting and leadership in space. i will spend most of my time reviewing what our space board studies have done. i will also give personal remarks and my experience on the augustine commission. the human space flight guarantees our leadership for a decade, especially if u.s.

utilization is strengthened. that miraculous act asks our council to lay out a program for space science utilization and i promised to report some promising developments nasa has developed. we have a new independent office that is beginning to work hard to reconstitute a disciplined was basically destroyed by an earlier budget cuts. they are making progress on non-governmental organization. user-interface organization. the question before us is what will constitute human flight leadership beyond the coming decade? there are many factors there.

one piece of direction that you gave to us -- you asked the council to undertake a study of human space flight beyond a decade -- this is a complicated study. even philosophical issues come into -- what should the goals be of human space flight over the long term? what kind of goals can be set as a country? even with budget fluctuations and administrative changes? what are the long lasting goals

that can serve the program through mid-century? i am pleased to say that the distinguished committee is about to be announced. we have worked very hard to develop stakeholder of public consultation plans. i believe this is the most potentially innovative study i have been involved. it is also the case doesn't so many factors -- that so many factors come into this, we will draw upon much of the research council. we'll be principal supporters of that. in this year, we completed a round of surveys that looks over all of the subjects of space science at nasa.

i think these recent studies will be the best picture of contemporary state of american science that you will get in the near future. of course, there are many things that were discussed in care for detail. the community was consulted. dozens of papers came in and so forth. from all of that, i will extract the leadership elements. they with the ones that inspired people to work beyond the capabilities and to beat the odds. here are some of the things we need to do with leadership. stay the course with the telescope, and despite all the difficulties. it is an instrument in astrophysics and the scientific

rationale. it has developed considerably since 2000. it can do extrasolar planets. with good ability. if we abandon it now, we risk abandoning world leadership in the entire subject of astrophysics. next, we have to capitalize on american leadership in the dark energy area. we need to find a way to get the science done that was proposed by the first priority new mission in our most recent survey. the implementation is less important than achieving the goals of maintaining a leadership in dark energies science where we started and also continue to work in extrasolar planets.

in the next two areas, they are in some ways very different, but they have something in common. one is solar terrestrial physics and the other is science. the many issues that they have, they have one in common -- the goals that they set for themselves depend on -- in serious ways on cognation. it is on the verge of a very exciting capability. it is the ability to predict space weather and solar storms. it is on the verge of becoming an operational, useful subject. at the same time, earth science suggests that it is on the

verge of defaulting on the science and applications obligations. as we look forward it to the future, the number of spacecraft devoted to this area looks like it will diminished dramatically. in both cases, there needs to be collaboration between nasa and that u.s. geological survey's and other agencies in order to set the goals for these programs. congressional leadership is needed to settle these roles in missions. you have heard this many times. you have coordination fatigue. how many times have you heard this? but there may be one area or the science community can help you out as you try to figure out the roles and missions of agencies whose coordination is essential to their success of these projects.

perhaps we scientists and technologists and users >> they can identify key variables in measuring these variables. at that point, it may be agencies will see more clearly in what their role is. they need to look at these of durables from space and from the ground systems. we could analyze the data and figure out what standards we will use for exchanging data and how to preserve the data in the long term archives. i come back to planetary science. there's much more to planetary science than mars, but i will focus my remarks on that for the moment. it's a leadership science in its essence, even the landing on a planet is something that most

countries cannot do. as the senator mentioned, we believe that with good luck, our energy source will last. curiosity return -- will return unmatched science. but we did not expect to have to come before you and say this, but to the future direction for mars beyond that has suddenly become unclear. this is because of the recent two cancellations of missions. curiosity is the most recent and spectacular project. it is a strategy in which the various assets we have devoted to mars worked together. the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. you could see tha tt in

the landing. the landing became spectacular on the internet. many landings have been canceled without a clear explanation. the decadal study,the study that steve chaired for us provided a similar model, in principle, for the next two decades. there is a guiding principles for the next series of missions, which is sample return. it is a guiding principle. if you are going to spend big money on mars, do not spend it on things that diffuse our

focus. spend it on the ultimate goal -- sample return. why is sample return important? when you bring it back, you could bring the full potential of thousands of laboratories around the world to their understanding of the place where astronauts will land. or the characteristics of it. 50 years and now, those samples will still be used for new science that no one thought of of the time. i would like to make a point -- sample return is no more the goal than is human landing. we need to focus on a goal that will eventually add up. to my way of thought, this can be repaired.

perhaps it is under way right now. i cannot predict this at the present time. nasa is conducting a serious study of how the human space enterprise in the mars science community can collaborate. what is really important from my point of view is that there be a clear set of goals or collaboration that will enhance the leadership in both areas. not just identify a few nice to haves where we can work together. it is essential to harmonize two essential goals -- sample return

and understanding the environment on mars and the potential of life, and a landing on mars. it is important to get the alignment of these goals are right. in the past, the relationship between a human science and human spaceflight has been fraught with difficulties and confusion because of unclear goals. again, congressional leadership is essential to nasa leadership in this area. we hope to be able to help by taking a look at the nasa report as it comes out and looking at it from the point of long-range planning in science just as that nasa advisory council suggested to do. at the end of the day, i think that my whole discussion has been devoted to the need for consistency in the vision and goals as essential to achieving

leadership in space. the science and technology community can whether budgetary up and downs, even cancellations, and this and that. but wholsesale changes are another matter altogether. i hope we have time to discuss this. >> thank you. >> senator nelson, senator hutchison, thank you for allowing me to testify on this important topic. i would like to recognize senator hutchison for decades of service. you have been a fearless champion for education reform, which is important for our space program going forward. thank you for your dedicated service. i wish you well in your

retirement. i'd like to highlight these major themes and concerns. we need to have continuous and clearly articulated budget that allows execution of an enduring vision. recognize that it is nasa's job in how to execute its enduring vision within the budget it has been given. reinforce that congress and everyone and will the market focus needs to be on progress of a leak to exploration and the fulfillment of this enduring vision. it will push the boundaries of innovation. it is my belief that what the nasa 2010 act did -- when it laid out the need for nasa to move forward.

for some time now, nasa has suffered in space exploration. administration established new priorities and directions, such as landing on an asteroid without clearly identifying a supporting market or demand beyond the u.s. market itself. was done with limited and are consent from congress. -- or no consent from congress. because of this lack of coordination, congress has been propelled in its legislative language with regards to the nasa requirements to ensure of the some level of stability in preservation of critical skills. i believe in order for any of the discourse we're talking today to be relevant, we need to have an enduring vision for nasa that is set by the president and is in line with congress's budget.

in a consistent manner that extends beyond a single administration or congressional election cycle. when our nation first embarked upon space exploration and leadership, the expectation was that we would continue to expand our scope and reach a presence over time, both robotic clean and with humans. we must have been the third moving up steadily. -- have affordable moving and moving steadily. must have a clear mission and destination. it is really that simple. there is no one right resolution in which how nasa can fulfill its charter. we as a nation has created nasa to do just that. as such, at nasa has determined that they need a strong launch system. that is the answer to that need.

nasa me the following statement. and the committee reviewed the issue as super heavy launch vehicle and concluded that it will. and regardless of the exact architecture that is pursued or the exact have a master karmic, a heavy launch capability is fundamental to its execution. it must be pursued with utmost priority and speed. it is dependent upon its capability as an enabler. now that architecture has been established. it is imperative that we receive adequate funding. what nasa cannot afford to do is continue the trend of cancelled programs and seemingly random directional changes of priorities. will result in the return or progress.

would result in little return our progress. it leverages on past experience and technology. this is the time to make sure we get beyond current's or that as fast and as safely as possible. orbit as fastth's and as safely as possible. there has been a lot of talk about returning to the moon. sos has the flexibility to do that. a continual research should be the norm. robots should be characterizing the environment on mars and its moons. when humans explore mars, robot

should be exploring the vast oceans of jupiter. we should have simply continues progress. the successful landing of the rover last year as a perfect explanation of the exploration as well as the robot exploration. i want to stress that the nasa exploration programs are not simply to return scientific data. the lead to technologies that can be used and built on earth. most notably, they inspire our generation and future generations to come. finally, on the 50th anniversary of the price speech, i have a quote from kennedy. "we choose to go to the moon and not because it is easy, but because it would hard. it would organize and focus the

best and our energy and skills." president kennedy said during that hard thing drives us to the best of our energies and skills. it is the need to expand our boundaries. nasa's job is to do the hard stuff. constantly pushing it boundaries of that require technological advancements. we grow the nation because it is the best of our people and capabilities to pushed creativity and abilities in true innovation and inspiration. innovation and inspiration cannot be goals, but rather the result. just as curiosity's mission inspires us all, this will challenge us to future innovations. this will keep us in a leadership position not only in space, but also on earth.

thank you. i look forward to any questions you have. >> well, thank you to you all. we are developing a rocket called the space launch system. we are developing a human a orion.e called paul ry all this is happening when the average american thinks the space program is open because the have attached the visible evidence of the space program naturally to the space shuttle over the course of three decades. when the space shuttle was shut down, that naturally leads people to the conclusion that it is over. now we are ramping up this whole

new system to get us out of low earth orbit. when apollo was developed, other than going to the moon and back, it was also then utilized for other things. it was used in the cold war. it was the forerunner to bringing this corporation that we now share with russia on the international space station. my question to all of you as we develop orion, what do you see as the full potential of that system? mr. maser, what would be some

examples of the types of missions that the sls and orion would make possible? >> well, certainly is getting beyond the low earth orbit. this will enable us to do that first and foremost. we can start to test all of the new technologies that have developed an evolved since we had last been there. it would leverage some of the human science that is been going on in the space station as we get beyond for an extended period of time in the radiation environment and other environments. there are a number of missions. an asteroid has been identified as one. we need a fallback plan.

there has been discussions going on of other interesting points where there is gravitational pulls over bodies. we can learn more over that. eventually, we will need a lander. eventually we will need a series of missions that are incrementally more difficult. the general pattern makes a lot of sense. you have the robotic precursor missions. learn to live off of the planet. be on the moon for a period of time. once you learn to live off the planet, you can explore to other places. it never ends.

one giant about n mission. you always know wha tis next. -- what is next. >> just like apollo, which was an incremental mission. it was an environment that we did not know anything about. let me ask dr. kennel -- give me some examples of the type of science missions that would be enabled by a crew or an unmanned mission? >> there are several. we have had several precursor missions. we have had robotic returns from

asteroids. there are lots of good asteroids. there is a distant, but important security goal by approaching an asteroid of significant mass. it has been known that from time to time asteroids hit the earth. if we are going to live for a long time as a civilization, you have to worry about asteroids hitting earth. need to nudge it. the neutral gravity will move it out of orbit. the proof of the principal would be helpful. you can get that done while utilizing science. the main argument for human beings has been to take a look

at what they see and tell you in ways that an automated laboratory cannot. i think the picture that i would have -- and this is not in any report -- for example, go to mars. set a tough goal of sample return. that would test of the technologies for both landing and takeoff. a simple return gives you deep scientific knowledge. you might have a couple of them to characterize. >> congratulations to the curiosity crew. >> yes, indeed. >> you are part of the first number of steps.

tell us what type of planetary science missions as a unique capability of the space launch system, this new big rock et, what does that provide? >> like our panel, i am excited with what we do on >> i was the one non-astronauts that conducted a two-week mission in the home state of florida simulating the kinds of eda tools and equipment one would use for exploration -- exploration of an ashtray. it got me excited about what a human crew could do at an asteroid mission. most importantly, a heavy capability is essential for missions to mars.

i am a fan of robotic operation. what our rover can do in a day you can do in about 45 seconds. what our opportunity rover has done on mars in a plane five years you can do in a good week or 1.5 weeks. what humans can do in the way of science on the surface of mars far surpasses what can ever be done in my view by these wonderful rovers that we have devoted our careers to building and operating. i see sos, heavy lift, and the ability to get him and beyond is fundamental to science. >> senator hutchinson was key as we worked through the design of that nasa authorization bill.

to make this system evolves it starts out what we have for now can grow to what ever the needs of the mission are. >> thank you. that was a joint effort. the purpose was to have the technology in the shuttle that will go to and from the space station transferable to the heavy launch vehicle with paul ryan so we maximize -- are ryoro we maximize tax dollars. when we talk about the importance of the robot and how exciting curiosity is, curiosity cannot come back with the samples. is it only going to be done when

we can put humans there that can return, or are we looking at another technology feet cut would be an interim -- in interim of trying to get to robot down and bring samples back? >> sample return can be conducted robotic week. the mission that was recommended would have been the first up in a set of missions that would have been robotic the returning samples from mars. returning samples from mars is in no way a substitute for the science that can be done by sending humans there. it lays the scientific ground work. it enables us to design a program of future human exploration of mars that is driven and motivated and informed by the scientific results have come from those return samples and is the

taxpayers the maximum return on the substantial investment we involved in sending humans to mars. we can bring them back robotic we and have humans play some role in that. envision scenarios in which samples are lust into orbit around mars and are retrieved by a human mission that goes into martian orbit incomes back to earth. there are many ways to play this game, but it is possible to do a return sample from mars that is robotic. >> is set a worthy goal that we should be looking at -- is that a worthy goal we should be looking at? we have talked about the status. your message is a clear mission in stages so that you accomplish a mission and valleys to the next mission and we know what that is. would be -- would we be looking at something that would go to

mars while the curiosity might still be working, but yet another one may have the return capability would be a next call to achieve looking toward the human going to mars as a goal down the road to ta? >> the campaign that was recommended would have kicked off with a launch in 2018. it is still possible to do that. different opportunities seized to launch a spacecraft are different. some are energetically more favorable than others. the 2018 it is one of the best in a few decades to win -- lynn a substantial payload on the surface of mars. it would be possible given adequate funding to do a mission in 2018 when curiosity will still be going. to put a rover on the surface to

cheate a carefully chosen cas that would be brought back to earth by subsequent robotic missions. that was the primary recommendation of the most recent survey. >> looking at it from the congressional standpoint we have to look at our financial situation and put money that is available towards the bus priority, -- bess priority, is that the best priority use of our exploration fund to do that, or would it be better to not put the money on that returnable vehicle but keep going toward the human vehicle as the next goal? >> i was sincerely hope it is

not in either/or proposition. as to compare mars sample returns to other missions that could be conducted in the field of planetary science, the single highest priority that was identified via a broad two-share consensus-building effort, was to begin this campaign of returning samples to mars. that was not an attempt to compare the values mars sample return to the value of future human exportation or anything else. my hope is that as has been the case over so much of nasa's history, robotic space exploration and human exploration can go forward in tandem providing a basis that drives us to send humans to these places. i hope that we can go forward

with this sample return mission without it adversely affecting what is a critical the buzzer went -- development of sos. >> do we know from what we have up there whether it is something orbiting mars or the roller that the atmosphere will not be dangerous for a human in a spacesuit? do we know for sure from what we have evidence of that it will be safe for a person to actually land there and stay for a while? >> we are in the process of obtaining that information. curiosity has insurance that will bear directly on that question. there is an instrument that is a

radiation detector to characterize the martian surface as it would affect future human explorers. there is a capability to measure the composition of the martian atmosphere to exquisite position -- precision. we will have an instrument that will tell us what minerals are present. you can avert -- and for what go the the affect of breathing that. just as bad in the early days prior to apollo, there were missions that were sent to orbit the moon, land on the moon, characterize the compaction state of the soil, one but pass touchdown, we answered those questions. we are doing the same thing on mars. >> i want to ask you -- you said that we should prioritize the

$we have for the best achievable goal in space exploration. you have stated that you are for robotics and you are for humans and they are not musically -- mutually exclusive. is not suppose the mission too broad to be able to fully fund the priorities? should we in the next nasa authorization look at what nasa so we are national aeronautics and space administration? should we as an example look at space exploration and put aeronautics somewhere else? that is just one example.

are there other examples? that is a twofer. should we look at splitting nasa, or is the aeronautics and space function so closely intertwined that they are stronger and more for the together even though we are spreading dollars pretty thinly along with the science mission that is so important like the web and the hubble? you are suggesting as a scientist on that issue. >> with regard to -- there are other ways to slice of the pie. with regard to aeronautics, to see perform several functionss for the government and faa that no one else is. the amounts of money you would get for its that up to go to

exploration would be so small i do not think it is worth the turmoil and disruption that would occur in a program that is already pretty small. as far as the rest of nassa is concerned, i believe that the way the science program is funded at about $5 billion level gives us a shot at a leadership in each of the feels that we are pursuing. that is the criterion. we have several that -- it gives us a shot at the leadership that each one that we are pursuing. there is one area that is underfunding, which would be the utilization of the space station. that will be willin two ways -- it will prove to people that we are still doing things in space. there are a number of critical

basic science things that need to be learned to do the space technology of a corporation. learning about fluids and pumps and other things like that -- be paid in space where there isa -- will inform the design of systems that will go beyond. i think that the science program would suffer tremendously if it were cut off from the human and may separate from the human space enterprise. >> any differing views? >> these are my views, based on my experience. >> are you saying that we are better off with nasa as a unit as it is, and there is not any part of nasa that you would jettison in order to get more of

the money for the focus issues that we all agree are so very important? >> you can look at each of the programs and ask what should we not do in order to do something new in the future. at this level of just the basic elements of nasa, i do not see any value in separating it at the present time. >> that was going to be my comment. with the limited budget, we are asking nasa to be all things to all people. the first up would be -- what are the true priorities? at some point -- in business, we do this all of the time. i get request for my research and development efforts every year. the requests come in at rest my budget. we decide the priorities for us and anything below the bottom

line does not get funded. it may buy its way back in. we make those hard choices. have we made those hard choices and set a line? what falls below from a priority standpoint? should we split it off somewhere else? should we have them not do it? if we think it is important and someone else is not doing but someone else is doing it, we on not saving money. he suggested we have choices. i agree. we have to fix some priorities. one of the other choices was maybe some of this could be shared with international collaboration. it reduces the total burden on one agency and nation to fund it themselves. we would have to decide which carriers are relevant for that. those are the two choices that

turned out. we have not talked about a third choice. the industry has worked hard on giving more results for less dollars. we have focused on how do we become as efficient as possible and for every dollar -- taxpayer dollar we spend and our customers, how can we provide more for that limited number of dollars? are we properly organize it? do we have the right footprint or square footage for what we need and who we need to be in the future? that is a legitimate question to ask. >> before we go to dr. squire, the reason i open the question of -- she we take some part of nasa that is considered not synergistic with the purposes we believe signed aeronautics and

space, could it go to a place where it can be go -- it can go more sufficiently so it matches better so the department of energy or something in the department of defense for aeronautics? i do not know. that is one way of at least looking at it. if you are getting down to the parties, make suggestions on what you would put into a lower category from a scientific standpoint without the political overview. are there programs within nasa that would get enough money over to space exploration or science to make it worth looking at lowering the priorities? dr. squires commission did you

have to prioritize -- mentioned you have to prioritize. >> in my time as chairman of the nasa advisory council, i come to the opinion that the aeronautics program is one of nasa's shining tools. it is a small part of the agency. if you look at nasa's budget and ask yourself -- what are the things that the agency does that most directly benefit the taxpayers and their daily lives? it is hard to find anything better than their aeronautics program. trying to rip it out of this place could be detrimental to

one of the best thing that nasa does. surveys that are run by the national research council are pure exercises in scientific priorities. when we conducted the survey, we looked at the sense of mission concepts. we went up to them and prioritize them. we draw on input from the scientific community to go on for years. what we bring forward are the few highest priority missions that have survived that pretty brutal down solid process. the missions that you see are the highest priority. they result from a very intensive and rigorous prioritization process. >> one of the new things that we did in this round of surveys is

to try to impart some budget and engineering realism to our recommendations. we included engineers an independent cost estimates. we looked at the practical realities as well as the ideal scientific goals. our recommendations were a result of those two types of considerations. in the event what happened was we recommended many fewer missions than we had in the past. in our astrophysics survey, there were a number of smaller mystics -- missions but only one lead candidate. there was winnowing that took place that we thought was riggers. the budget will win no bus every. even further. when you look at those leadership recommendations, it is important to try to stick to the goals that they laid forth because those were analyzed for

both scientific leadership purposes and realism. >> you mentioned better utilizing the space station as one of the things that we should do because there is a term limit on that of 2020. one of the things that we put in our authorization bill was to make the u.s. part of the space station a national laboratory so that outside interests, other agencies, corporations, universities could buy experiments there and use it. what other ways would to have to for the utilize and better utilize the space station that

we invested heavily in producing and has now been extended? it is extended even though we cannot get to it on our own with our own juice yet, but be well in the next three years. what would you suggest we should be doing to better utilize it? >> when the commission recommended we extend the life time of the station to "20/20", we suggested an indefinite suspension -- it is that indefinite time horizon that would enable people from the non-nassau community to have a enough -- nassa community to have enough sense so they could

plan -- term utilization program. being open about the date that we close the station is important. if you look at it, your pants are doing a better job of utilizing the station -- europeans are doing a better job station.rthe they have planned for the long term. they have developed stable long- term communities that looke at the issues. they have basic science research as as well as engineering gone forward. changes eviscerated our community in that field. that happened about 2005 or 2006. we recommend you rebuild that

community. nasa has made a good-faith effort to do so. they have created an office in with their limited resources they are trying to rebuild a community that has lost faith that the station will be there for them. that is why the ngo is needed for them to make it easy for them to participate. the long horizon is necessary for them to be secure. the funding that that office has is far less than the funding we used to have. a requirement for the u.s. is for u.s. scientists to begin to use it. by 2020, you will see you as scientific results coming out at the same international level that we are you to -- used to. people sent, "america is doing a lot on

its space station/" the europeans are getting more signs out of the space station that -- then we built and we are. >> i have a specific suggestion . if you are a university researcher who is interested in doing research in the microgravity environment, there are substantial barriers to trying to get an experiment on board the space station. there is a level of review and oversight. what some researchers may view is excessive attention to might newt details of -- minute details. they are daunting to many university investigators. it is hard to get to the process and get your hardware on statio ns. the reason for thei existence

are sound. crew safety must never be compromised. now that we have years of experience in operating the space station, it may make sense to look carefully at whether or not there is a gap that could be widened between what is really necessary to safety -- safely fly something and what the current set of rules and oversight demand. if that gap can be widened, reducing the barrier to getting universities, other organizations to fly experiments on the space station, making it easier to do business in that national laboratory. there could be some benefits to the nation. >> thank you. >> this barrier that you described is the one that we

thought the wengo organization could overcome -- the ngo organization could overcome. you need a professional organization who can take the hopes of the space-night the community and translate them into terms that the operational community can tolerate and work through all of the issues and not make scientist out there who have not work in space try to deal with it. you need a professional opportunity translation organization. that is why we thought -- there is an example and the space telescope science institute. something like that is needed to actually translate opportunity into reality on station operations. at the end of the day, the provision of access to the zero low gravity will be an

attraction to may scientist if they can get at it. >> but me ask you -- i have a couple of other questions. one is -- on the -- you said we should have more participation and youth with our international partner in both -- space exploration. do you have any specifics on what more we should be asking and realistically expect from our international partners? >> sure. but me give you two examples. but meet -- in the area of robotic space exploration, there are several necessary elements to a simple return campaign.

one is a rover that can land on the surface and collect a c aches of of bills. that is something we can do well. you need a vehicle that can get those samples of the surface and into orbit around mars. ne a vehicle to confine that spacecraft and a rendezvous with it and bring the samples back to earth. on-orbit ron a view aris the thl partners and how to do. there is significant potential. that was the intention of the planetary recommended several return campaign. it will be conducted with other agencies. >> what are we not doing that? >> the cuts that were projected to the fiscal year 2013

planetary budget make it impossible projecting the budget forward to carry out that mission in partnership with visa. nasa walked away from the partnership temporarily. with respect to human exploration, we have two magnificent pieces of what you need for a truly enabling deep space exploration. the orion and scls on not get to a loan to an asteroid or the surface of the month. -- alone to an astroid of the surface of the moon. those are all potentially components of a true deep space exploration system to which international partners could be international -- invited to contribute.

i stressed there is a big piece of the puzzle missing. we say we will like to go back to the moon. right now, we have the ability to launch a lot of mass off the earth. those are necessary capabilities. they are not sufficient. looking to capable, committed international partners as we have done well with the international space system. it is something we shall look at. >> the international space station partition was a miracle with international relationships. it has survived budget up and downs, very steep falls on the part of the other partners, and yet, continues to this date. 14 nations working together on

the station. if you think that someday, the world will go see wars led by dean added states, then you will need somehting like the space station partnership in the conference-building that is taking place to also participate in the mission. there is a policy issue that he may wish to consider. as people renegotiate the international space station partnership, you could add to is t some goals that are related to the development of the technologies beyond leo exploration to the space station partnership so that they began to develop an awareness of the great challenges and technical challenges that will face all of us as we try to get to mars and we began to enlist them in the effort. i do not know whether that was

served as a precursor for the partnership. it would build the confidence. it would help start the process off in a way that is useful to the united states. >> the space station was nearly canceled with in one vote. a lot of people have said one of the main reasons it went through is because of our international commitment. and in turn, stable vision of incrementally increasing challenges. if we committed to that and committed to a collaboration internationally one long run, perhaps set the model in which national commitments to each other create stability and can get us out of this cycle of starting an cancelling things because it goes beyond any one

administration or any one congressional period because the it meant a multi-decade. >> what you all are doing is putting forth the long-term, clear goal that you discussed as the first policy directive, becuase it would take certainty to get our international theners to teureup assurance that we would not have stops and starts. in my time, i have worked with democratic republic -- the list -- administrations and

republican administrations. you cannot say that we are going to stop doing something that we have international partners already investing in from their own budgets. their percentage of their budget they are putting in is as big as the percentage of our budget. we have got to be a reliable partner in order to keep an alliance like that going. if we are talking about the kind of commitment that you suggest, which is putting different vehicles capabilities to get the so that it does find all fall on us, nevertheless it, we are going to have to be reliable and show that we are not going to get cold feet mid-way through this and stop our part. that is a worthy goal for the

clear-stated visionary goal of the future. you put together a nugget that the nee the bassiis for xt authorization bill. we have seen in the emergence of commercial capability, a lot of our u.s. tax dollars have gone into the commercial operators begin to get the capabilities to get the taxi to and from the space station. are you concerned about the money that goes into the commercial operation taking from the future heavy lunch with

the discussion that we have just had? do you think that we can do both efficiently, having the taxi to the space station, and allow it to be extended? you have the taxi capabilities going forward beyond 2020, and maybe it could offset much of the expense of holding onto the space station while we focus on the next generation beyond earth or exploration and. >> we were just talking about the importance potentially up international partners bringing pieces to the puzzle to create a more robust deep space capability. the resources have to come from

somewhere. if you look at some of our international partners oppose a commitment to future space station commitments, some of them have to do with providing step up to the space station. if as a result of investment in commercial capabilities, the recent dragon mission, for example, if we develop a robust capability in this country to do that's resupply, it could foreignsome of thei partners they are currently willing to provide. they could put the resources into something else. if we are smarter about how we play this game, there are a efficiencies that could come

from commercial taxis to the international space station that could provide benefits that could be felt in the deep space part of a nasa does. >> thank you. >> there is no long-term future unless to provide value in the short-term. the trips to the station are providing value in the short term. the commercial enterprise is going to broaden the social base and technology base for the larger enterprise. that is the useful thing. there is another dimension that he may not become aware of. with the cancellation of the delta rocket system, the space science community has become concerned about the lack of availability of ms. hill rocket systems -- mitt scale rocket

systems. there is an on focus hope that if the commercials are successful, then we will be able ot table -- tailor our experiments. . have not seen basthe study there is a possibility the successful commercial industry will help space science. >> we need access to stations in the united states. both cargo and crew. we want to do it as affordable as possible. lower orbit is where hundreds have gone before. the point behind that is we have been doing that long enough. we should be able to do that cost-effectively. we should do that in a different manner than we have traditionally.

cargo as a separate launch vehicle and system can take more risks. we can afford a little bit of a billion there. that is good. as you ship the commercial, we will not be as risk-tolerant. you have the lives of people on board and the space station that you have to be careful with from that standpoint. are we absolutely certain that the approach we are taking is the quickest, most cost- effective and the safest way to take things to a station, especially people and how many systems the we need on the the context? when i look at commercial crew, if the station were to end in

2020, the station crew people would interplanting each one's a year from which it for maybe three or four years. maybe the station will be extended. how many commercial crew provided to we need in the long run? >> we have tried to lower the number of commercial operators are going to get the federal seed money because we agreed that was more than we could take away from sls and orion. there at 2.5. >> was positive movement. that was good to get to the next point. as it evolves to the next decision point, we need to look at how many real missions are there out there and how many suppliers? >> the goal is to have one.

that is the goal. we are looking at the efficiency and making sure we are not paying just as much as we would have we kept its all in nasa. the down select, which we fo rced, is a step in the right direction. hopefully, there is one more town slut. thank you very much. this has been very, very helpful. it will inform us as we go forth into the next authorization. fortunately, even though i am leaving, there will be others who are staying in the staff will hopefully say and we will use this helpful information to look at this in accordance of a goal that can be achieved with

international corp. -- international corp. thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you for your leadership over the years. you are very passionate about this topic. the value of competition is that instead of your rocket company being the only one in town, you give sharper, your prices get sharper. if there is a competitor there. that is the idea of this competition for the way to get to and from the international space station. the bringing of the cost comes dramatically down. on our topic of exploration beyond earth orbit, doesn't it

up here right now that with commissioner technology that we could not do -- assuming we can build a lender in that we know what we are landing on and we have returned a sample so we can know what to expect. right now, it will take us eight to 10 months to get there. once you are there, the planets are out of alignment. you have to wait a long time before you can bring the crew back to get the planets closer in alignment. are we talking about going to mars and the 2030's for the first crude mission that we have to develop a new propulsion system that will give us their quicker? >> it is possible.

human mission to mars using advanced but chemical proportions this project propulsion systems. we do not need a dramatically new technology. there are technologies that will be beneficial. when can imagines some deceleration technologies that could be used at bars -- mars for some of the transfer stations to give clues to mars to do in-space storage of cryogenics would be good. if you were to conduct a poll in the fashion not office of who would be willing to sign up for a mission, you would get a lot of takers. the biomedical issues that are associated with long-term explosion -- exposure to micro

gravity are being addressed impressively on the international space system. that is one way in which i.s.s is contributing to future exploration. you do not need a totally different approach to in-space propulsion to safely get humans on the surface of mars and be affected while there are there and get them back. there are technological developments that will be enabling. >> i will not challenge the's judgment because i agree with it. the commitment to the gulf will stimulate all sorts of technological innovations. people will try things to shorten the flight time. they will try various

biomedical remedies and so forth because they know the goal will still be there. as soon as she made it clear that we are going to eventually go beyond low-earth orbit, you'll find people willing to take a risk on new technologies adn experiences that every now and then there is a breakthrough. the call will be for those technologies to accelerate the time that we shove off from low- earth orbit and make the first mission. setting the goal is important for eliciting potential innovations. >> i want to wrap up the hearing with a couple question. about the funding adn india of the funding. we are living in uncertain times with the budgetary to

chelation as it is. if you look at nasa as a federal agency compared to other federal agencies, it has faired quite well. future?t is the sequestration, this meat cleaver that is hanging over the federal budget at the end of the year was never intended to take affect because it was the meat cleaver to force the house enjoin supercommittee to come to agreement. we know what happened a year ago. that did not happen. we are facing those consequences. we will work ourselves through that and avoid this sequestration. but, still, the uncertainty of the funding of the future -- mr. maser, we are getting ready to

enact another appropriations bill called a continuing resolution, taking the existing funding from this past fiscal year and applying it for the next six months. that creates uncertainty for nasa programs and contractors. how is the past have the continuing resolutions affected nasa programs in contrast? >> this year may be a good thing. i do not know relative to what we have them looking at potentially. generally, what we before is a view to what funding is going in out years. we organized around us. as a budget is approved, we go into a continuing resolution.

activities in scope and funding for things you have planned on, stopped for, adn organized for do not materialize and you are forced to move people all around and shift priorities and in some cases you cannot adjustor costs fast enough. he will have to pass on the cost increase to the customer and the short run. there have been probably more discontinuous than the transitions from the end of the apollo program to the shuttle program because there is quite a few years of overlap in development activity. the shuttle has started years before its first launch and continue to keep going. that provides -- anywhere it was. in the past three or four years here, we have seen the end of the shuttles, selection of

constellations. a year ago the decision was made. >> two years ago. >> the authorization was two years ago. thesls was a year ago. >> no, sir. the authorization in 2010 set the blueprint for the sls. it set the parameters. you're talking about the funding of it. the funding -- i thank senator hutchinson -- it started to implement the authorization bill for the development of the sls and orion and you always have these pulls and tugs and with the overall attempts at slashing federal spending on every nine, that has located things.

make your point. >> thank you. the all sense, when it is every year in 2010, 2011, and 2012, we have made reductions down to the size we felt would be appropriate for our business going forward. starting in 2010, as we get toward the end of the year, and we look toward what is in the future in terms of budgets, we have to make additional reductions. this is my third year of reductions in every year i say once i get down to a level of will have a stable employment level and can manage fluctuations. that is the intent we are doing their share. we are continuing to reduce staff. we are down 30% over the past

three years. the continuing revolutions -- resolutions, sequestration, adn the lack of stability creates nervousness about what the future holds for them. it creates a big challenge for attraction, retention, and motivation. we can organize and size for any future, but we would like to see a view as to what that future looks like and some stability for the long run. competition is fine. we are happy to compete. if we lose, we will make adjustments. to have them not funded and never be able to compete for them or have the canso is a challenge. that in yourust position with an hour space studies board, you might want to

have them look at this topic -- the impacts to the space program of different funding scenarios, including sequestration, even though the senator does not think sequestration will go into effect. if it did because of lack of agreement by december 31, it will be overturned in the new congress. i was suggest that you will take up the topic soon. >> we have given this some thought. it is clear that given the is taking the decision makers the sense of what the risk is at different levels of production will be very useful. if will be difficult for us to do it of the next three months periods of the longer-term, we can look at levels of cuts or changes in budget and how we may respond, and we would do some

with reference to the goals thus far that we have set forth in our surveys unless we are directed to look at it differently. we -- knowing our goals we could know what we would do under different scenarios. >> it would also be helpful if you could report from the nrc to evaluation of the administration's plan under the nasa authorization bill for the exploration program with regards to mars. .hat would be very helpfulye >> we would have to work it out carefully. we very much want to see what the new nasa committee is saying. we want to evaluate it. >> good.

this has been most illuminating. thank you very much. the meeting is adjourned. people like to see if mitt romney was campaigning for welfare or against welfare reform or abortion. what he was doing in the 2002 campaign. people like to see how these politicians involved. there is an element to it that is a gotcha element and one that is incredibly interesting. ♪ >> why it is that he has changed so often, why he finds it difficult to come down on one side of the issue. he pulled between both issues. ♪ >> for someone who is running

for state office, does it help that someone else has a name barack? >> he is a trailblazer in a hero. >> the best way to describe it is the viral beating heart of the internet. >> war with this uzzfeed reporter. >> i started by saying let us be cautiously optimistic. something is happening which is great. what is great is what i call the awakening. the awakening is the awakening of the arab mind and the intellectual revolution. it is possible to get rid of dictators and change the country. this is irreversible. that has got to be changed. this is something that is a legacy, a shift which is very promising for the now and

future, an islamic studies professor talks about the causes behind the arab spring in the role of the arabs will play in the countries involved. bob woodward will be our guest on [video clip] ." he has written a book on how the president and congress bill to pass economic program. it is called "the price of politics." he will answer your questions monday morning live on c-span. next, remarks from teamsters president james hoffa. he spoke earlier this week of the national press club for about an hour. [gavel] >> good afternoon and welcome to

the national press club. my name is theresa werner and i am the president. and we are the leading organization for a journalist. we are committed to our program while fostering a free press worldwide. for more information, visit our web site, www.press.org. to donate to programs through the press club please visit press.org.institute. on behalf of our members worldwide, i'd like to welcome our speakers. the head table includes guests of our speaker as well as working journalists who are club members. if you hear applause, note that the general audience is attending so it's not a lack of journalistic objectivity.

i'd like to welcome our c-span and public radio guests. our luncheons are featured on our member-produced weekly podcast from the national press club available on i tunes. you also can follow the action on twitter, using# npclunch. after our guest speech concludes, we'll have a q&a and i'll ask as many questions as time permits. i'd like to introduce our head table guests and ask each of you to stand up grievely as your name is announced. from the right, adam cano, vice president of client strategy at t.m.p. government. t. nasir rmed, reporter. tiffany, local, first officer and guest of our speaker, john boyd, editor of c.q. roll calls executive briefing on transportation policy. ken hall, general secretary

/treasure, international brotherhood of teamsters and guest of our speaker. donald linejuan lajey, 2009 president of the national press club and speaker's committee member who organized today's lunch. i'm going to skip our speaker for a moment, jonathan salant, political reporter of bloomberg news and past president of the national press club. james jackson, member of the teamsters local 639 u.p.s. employee and guest of our speaker. david shepherdson, washington bureau chief of "the detroit news." thank you all for joining us today. for as long as most folks can remember, the unions have given their time, labor and money to democrats, only occasionally breaking with tradition and endorsing a republican for president as they did with ronald reagan and george h.w. bush. this year they will keep with tradition and support president obama's re-election campaign. teamster president james p.

hoffa, our speaker today, says the labor union with 1.4 million members supports president obama and has criticized republicans and mitt romney for favoring c.e.o.'s over workers. after the r.n.c. convention in tampa, he told the huffington post that romney wants to annihilate organized labor but it's been a mixed bag for workers during the obama administration. attempts to raise the minimum wage has failed even when democrats dominated the house and the senate. some union supporters say the democratic national committee took labor support for granted when they chose north carolina, a right-to-work state, with little union representation to host last week's convention. and free trade agreement signed by obama threatened to hurt american workers. meanwhile, the unions must juggle the demands and needs of their members while sinking businesses beg for mercy in a

weak economy. earlier this week the teamsters urged fedex c.e.o. fred smith to loosen his grip on the fedex board and to allow an independent chairman who could hold the line on escalating c.e.o. pay instead of cutting jobs to bolster the company's bottom line. at no other time in our history, mr. hoffa says, has the labor movement seen so many anti-worker forces working together to take away productions and rights that we have fought so hard to secure. corporations have become too rich and too powerful, and mr. hoffa should know, he stood at the center of the fray since childhood as the only son of legendary j.r. hoffa, the second longest serving president in teamster history. mr. hoffa grew up on the picket lines and union meetings. on his 18th birthday, he received his own union card, mooping his early union jobs, unloading freight from ships, truck driver, bus driver, and

heavy equipment operator. in 1966, mr. hoffa earned a law degree from the university of michigan and began a 25-year career as a teamster attorney, representing members and local unions. he was elected president of the union in 1999. on march 19, 2013, mr. hoffa will surpass his father to become the second longest serving general president in the 110-year history of the teamsters union. please join me in welcoming to the national press club teamsters president jim hoffa. [applause] >> thank you, madam president. it's a great pleasure to be here at the press clubs at this auspicious time. there's so much going on in our country right now and it's a pleasure to be here with so many friends and people from the media and talk about what the issues are today. first of all, i want to talk

about the teamsters union a little bit and talk about the fact that, you know, as madam president said, i was elected in march of 1999, and we're very proud of what we've done on the teamsters union. we've taken this union from a union that was bankrupt, divided, and falling apart literally and made it what it is today. when we took over, this union was a union where sister against sister, brother against brother, local against local, joint counsel against joint counsel. there was chaos and we came in and reached out and reached out to those people who opposed us to say enough, we cannot have a civil war in this union, we must unite this union. and fortunately we have. we have built a strong union and we are united today. recently we had an election -- i'd like to talk about the fact that the teamsters union has 1.4 million members, we're in the united states, we're in canada, we have 150,000 members

in canada. we're in puerto rico. we are the most democratic union in the united states. we're very proud of that. and the fact is, we are elected by the members. we are not elected by business agents. we are elected by ballots being mailed out to members all over the place. we mail out 1.4 million ballots. they come back. and ken hall, my running mate over here, my secretary/treasure, we won roughly 2/3 of the vote and i bet barack obama would like to have those numbers. we're very proud of what we've done. and it shows the fact is in a tough economy, in tough times, we're getting the job done. it's no secret that we're in the middle of a tremendous recession. we have 23 million people out of work. but you really have to go back, you know. i had to laugh at the convention, they're talking about the fact we're trying to blame barack obama for what happened as if no one remembers the bush administration, no one

remembers 2008 with hank paulson and tarp. everyone seems to have forgotten that and the fact is that's where the catastrophe happened and those days when wall street was going to collapse, we had a.i.g. and lehman brothers. we all remember that. it wasn't that long ago. and that's where the collapse began. so we've been fighting out of that, and here we are 3 1/2 years later, we're not out of it yet. but it's better today than it was. so we're fighting back and getting the thing done. as you heard, 23 million people are out of work. the teamsters union is surviving in this economy. we're fighting we v very hard. we have a great union. we find people who want to be organized. we've organized more than 150,000 people in the last five years. that is a tremendous achievement. in this economy, in these tough times. because we've been able to reach out to bus drivers, to port workers, to airline pilots, to airline mechanics. and we've been able to organize when other people haven't. so our union, while other

unions have gone down, has kept its number there is and we're very proud today to have two teamsters with us, james over here from u.p.s. and over here tiffany from our local union aliegeant, we just organized, and she's an airline pilot. one of the things we always say about the teamsters union, i like to say, well, so many people say we're all truck drivers. well, that's not true. i always say the teamsters union is a to z, airline pilots to zoo keepers, san diego zoo, thank you. so we have people everywhere. and we're a wonderful union that is diversified. we have court reporters, we have lawyers, we have police officers, we really are a diverse, diverse union that covers the entire country and canada, and we're very, very proud of the fact that we've been able to achieve so much. one of the things we talk about all the time is that today, bringing up to date, really starting with 2010, something i give speeches on all over the

country, there's a war on workers. right now there's a tremendous war going on beginning in 2010 the battle to basically take on labor, put them in their place, basically destroy them. we had 12 states where right to work was introduced. simultaneously. so that just didn't happen. we basically saw what happened with regard to a number of states like ohio, wisconsin, indiana, michigan, pennsylvania, where we had governors, republican governors elected, and we saw all of a sudden a tie of anti-union legislation, right-to-work, paycheck deception, basically controls on collective bargaining. we all saw the battles that happened in wisconsin and ohio, and i was very, very fortunate to be part of that. i was in madison, wisconsin. we had 100,000 people at the state capitol protesting the fact the governor had taken away collective bargaining from

public employees. we had a tremendous battle there, and today we've been able to get an injunction against that law. and even though we were not able to recall scott walker in a recall election, we took back the senate, so we've stopped all the craziness for a while in wisconsin. so that's a battle we're fighting there. ohio is the same way. what happened in ohio, john kasich gets in. what do we see all of a sudden, taking on collective bargaining, no collective bargaining for public employees. that's unheard of. we've always had that. all of a sudden they see things differently and they get a republican house, a republican senate and they're able to jam these things through and it's off to the races we go. we really have a problem there. we were able to basically pass a law that basically stopped collective bargaining. but fortunately in ohio, and again, you know, this is labor working very, very hard, they have the citizens veto there. basically, we were able to get over 700,000 petitions, get it on the ballot, and overwhelmingly, the action to

the legislature were defeated and we were able to restore collective bargaining. the same thing going on elsewhere, indiana, michigan. we see what's going on everywhere. where did all this come from? it really is coming out of what they call the tea party. we didn't have this type of attack with republicans or democrats. you didn't have it 10 years ago. and all of a sudden there's this tied al wave of attacks on organized labor and almost a cultural change we see going on in this country. it's something to see. i've been around for a while and i've never seen it. we really are fighting back. i want everyone to know the unions are basically fighting back along with other people to say we're not going to let this happen and you saw what we did in ohio and we're fighting very hard to make sure we restore the balance in this country. we've seen a tidal wave of things i don't think anybody ever thought they'd see. we've never seen this type of activity with regard to the tea party, with regard to 2010,

this tidal wave of change in this country. and really, there's a cultural war going on. all of a sudden we see, you know, in many, many states, legislation being introduced to basically suppress the vote. you say you have to get this type of i.d. there's articles today in the paper saying that in pennsylvania it could basically suppress 800,000 votes in pennsylvania because of the new law there. we see it everywhere else. and people are fighting back that because that's basically -- who is introducing that? this is the tea party and the right wing trying to suppress the vote. i had to laugh, jim crammer who is on television, the stock guy, he wrote a thing saying even under this law his father couldn't vote who is 0 years old and never missed a vote but he doesn't have the i.d. so he can't vote this time. i think someone finally got him one. but that just shows you how extensive this is, when you see what's going on in this country to basically suppress the vote. we also see a tidal wave of

action with regard to pro-choice, attacking pro-choice, attacking women's rights to medical health, the right to choose. again, we have over 33 states of introduced laws like that. we see what's going on in virginia right now. really extreme measures that we didn't see before. but it's part of a cultural revolution that's going on with regard to, you know, the republicans and the coat brothers and everyone else saying we want to change america back. basically what we're getting down to is that's the choice that's going to happen november 6. this is coming down to almost a cultural choice. this is more than mitt romney versus, you know, barack obama. this is becoming almost cultural. it's a cultural change of the types of changes they want to make in this country. i think it's extraordinary we see this going on today. and it's amazing that we see what's going on with the

attacks on labor. and let me say why they're attacking labor. the right wing believes and knows labor is the backbone of the democratic party, the backbone of the progressive movement. we're basically the ones that back basically the idea of the eight-hour day, all the basic reforms we take for granted were passed by organized labor going back 50 years, 100 years. and we're the backbone and we still are there. we are strong, we are organized, we have money, and we have boots on the ground. we are basically fighting this attack we're on right now, this war on workers that we've never seen before. basically, that's something completely new, and they're taking us on because they realize if they can knock out labor, if they can knock out public employees, if they can knock out organized labor with national right to work, they can basically turn it country around. they'll have a free run because we are the only ones that stand in the way of this movement

that they have that basically is out there to turn america far to the right. that's the ballot and the reason why we're under attack as never before and have to continue on. recently i attended the democratic convention, it's an amazing event. i'm a democrat. no surprise. and it was amazing when you contrast that convention with the republican convention which i watched on television. you know, you had all these speeches from the republicans talking about our forefathers, talking about their aunt, their uncle, what a tough life they had, how they got here. but i didn't hear anybody talking about the voucher system. i didn't hear about tax cuts for the rich. i didn't hear about cutting medicare, medicaid. i didn't hear about getting rid of food stamps or cutting them back. they didn't talk about what they really believe in and what's on their website and what's in their platform. basically in their platform for

the first time, they have basically national right to work. they're against the minimum wage. they want to get rid of the inheritance tax. they want to get rid of capital gains. but i didn't hear anyone talk about that at the convention. you know why they talked about that? they would never get elected. they think they can go to this election and talk about their forefathers and how great this country is and how we have 23 million people unemployed but not lay out a plan, the way we're going to put people back to work is give tax cuts to the rich. what an idea. wow. that's what they believe. they should have said that because that's what they're running as. be honest with the american people. if that's the choice, let's make that choice and let everyone know what we're talking about and go out and talk about those issues. the other thing i thought was interesting is about how the republicans are rewriting history. you know, when you went to the conventionens, it's unheard of the previous president was there.

i couldn't find george bush anywhere. i couldn't find our friend dick cheney. where was dick? where was sarah palin? i'm diing to see sarah. they didn't want them there because it reminds people of those eight years that they've written off that never happened. there is no eight years. there was no recession. there were no wars. i mean, nothing ever happened during those eight years and they want to tell everyone, the people today, that history began when barack obama took over. he's responsible for the recession. he's responsible for people being unemployed. everything's his fault, and none of the things george bush did during his time with tarp and lehman brothers and the collapse of wall street, that never happened. so we're starting from day one. it's like pol pot, basically start the day one, the new calendars. it's very unusual what's going on. and i think it's amazing, i hope people have seen that and talking about that. you talk about anti-labor, one of the reporters i talked to

did a lot of media out there and he was saying to me, do you think there's a chance labor and the republicans can get together in the future? i looked at him and i said, you know, they want national right to work, they want to get rid of project labor agreements. they want to get rid of everything we've worked for for the past 40 years and you want me to get rid of them. they've never been this extreme. there was a time people talked to maybe a nixon or maybe at another era there was some talk but not anymore because things have changed, and the republican party has veered so much to the right. i think it's amazing both culturally with regard to almost everything we're talking about, they have become the far, far right of this country. and it reminds me, and i'm old enough to remember the john burt society, i remember the john burt society, many of you do, too, and barry goldwater and ran against lyndon johnson, 1964. they had this extreme right wing idea, everybody was a

communist, all this stuff. and i see basically the same thing today with the tea party. and i understand that some of the research shows some of the coke brothers, their forefathers were part of the john burt society. it's kind of come around. we have a new john burt society, now it's called the tea party but basically again to go to a far off place and roll the clock back to 1890. that's what we're facing today. the other thing that impressed me, i looked at the democratic party and saw all different people there, and i said this is the big tent. they really have everybody there. they have labor, they have women, they have gays, they have hispanics. it's the big tent. and when i looked at the republican party, all i saw was the 1%. when you looked at the face of those people at the convention, it was like looking at the rotary club. so that's kind of the changes that we have right now. so we're basically talking about where do we go from here and what can we do for this

country right now? you know, i think that the battles are coming up. this election is going to decide a lot. every election we have talked about forever is always -- i remember every speech, every four years, we always say this is the most important election ever. well, for the first time this is the most important election ever. because this election is really going to decide everything. it's going to decide whether the rich get richer or whether we're going to have food stamps, whether we're going to have social security and medicare. it's going to be a watershed in this country because much is riding on this election. and the question is, who's going to win? and what's going to happen in the senate? what's going to happen in the house? these are all issues that are going to be decided december r november 6. we're urging our members and working hard to get the vote out. other unions are working very hard to get the vote out to make sure we get people registered and get people to the polls. with regard to money, we've never been able to spend as much money as the far right.

i was reading an article recently about who's backing mitt romney? where does he get his money from? it was interesting, because obviously it's our friends the coke brothers, they're putting in hundreds of millions of dollars into this election. we know who they are, and there's a guy by the name of sheldon adelson who owns the venetian in las vegas, he said he maybe can put in $100 million, he already put in $10 million for newt gingrich. that wasn't a good bet. he didn't do well on that one. there's a guy named harold simmons. remember the swift boats? he did the swift boats. he's a multimillionaire. bob perry, another swift boat guy, multimillionaire, putting millions into this campaign. a guy by the name of jim davis. these are names you really don't know every day. jim davis, he has new balance shoes. he's one of these real right wing guys and is going to put millions of dollars into this campaign. then we have the marriott people, two people that are

going to inherit the marriott hotels, nice hotels, crazy ideas. they're putting millions of dollars into this election. and then of course we have our friend karl rove and he's got his crossroads of america, he's putting in millions of dollars. what i'm getting at, you've got a handful of people, maybe six to eight people that are probably going to spend more money on this election than all of organized labor, and i would say over 100 million americans, they won't put that kind of money in this election. and i think people have to say, is that good for the country? is that what our forefathers really saw, that a handful of people, six to eight people can put more money in an election and control events more than maybe 100 million people that work with their hands every day, the 13 million people and their families in the labor union movement and people not in the movements out there working every day and doing the hard work. there's something wrong with that and that goes back to citizens united. citizens united was basically the worst thing that ever

happened to this country right now. it's upsetting the balance in democracy. i think obama is going to win. but what does this portend for the future if this keeps on? eventually they get richer and richer and more and more money goes into these campaigns. we see these ads, they're persuasive and well done and can take somebody that's a good candidate and turn them into the devil. this unlimited money is unbalancing the entire political spectrum and somethings that to be done about that. and i suggest we're going to have to have a constitutional amendment to change that. we've got to start talking about other things. after november 6 we've got to talk about, what are we going to do and how do we start rebuilding america? it's going to be a decisive election and i think barack obama is going to win. once he wins, what do we win? do we win four more years of the same thing? he hasn't won anything. does he win a congress that doesn't want to pass any legislation? does he have a mitch mcconnell who says my job is to make him fail, and i will make sure that

he fails? is that what we want for the next four years? so we're going to have to really think about if he wins and when he wins, what does he win and where do we go from here? how do we change america? and i would suggest a couple things. we've got to, number one, start bringing jobs back to this country. the 23 million jobs, many of these jobs are gone, gone forever. there's something wrong with the country that as rich as we are that say we can't balance our budget. there's something wrong when the very rich people of this country, the people i've been talking about, you know, don't pay their fair share of taxes, and when they want to move their taxes from, you know, 4% to 5%, they say oh, we can't do that and that holds up everything. there's something wrong with that. there's something wrong when some of our biggest corporations in america don't pay any taxes at all. general electric doesn't pay tax, boeing doesn't pay tax, verizon doesn't pay tax. what's going on here? how can you make billions of dollars -- i don't care what lawyer you have, you should be paying taxes. you can see how that would help

us balance the budget if we had more income but they have found a way to weedle the system. i had to laugh -- not laugh, it was tragic. general electric not only didn't pay any taxes after they made billions in this country, but they got a rebate. that's amazing. and there's something wrong with our tax laws. we've got to change our trade laws, basically change the law that says you will be rewarded in the tax code if you bring jobs back, if you build factories here. we have corporations right now, i was reading this morning, moody's says corporations are sitting on over $1.5 trillion in cash right now. moody's this morning. so why aren't we putting that money to work to start rebuilding this country? what are they waiting for? is something going to happen? is some bell going to go off? start investing in this country. they've got to do that. we've also got to start making sure that we, like i said, change citizens united. we've got to have a constitutional amendment to get

this back in sync where somebody doesn't have a hundred million times more opportunity and more clout than i have because he can buy ads and do things thrike. we've got to have more american stimulus bill. we've got to start rebuilding our roads. we've got to start doing the infrastructure. and these are the things that people have been fighting us on. the president tries to rebuild the infrastructure and they say no. he says he wants to build airports and dot f.a.a., oh, he says no to that. he wants to extends the unemployment benefits, they say oh, no, we're going to hold that hostage. every issue he comes up with that helps america rebuild, he's being opposed by the republicans. we've got to find some way to change that. what i suggest is after this election, we're going to have to have a sitdown. and i think that the president, i don't need to tell the president what to do, i'm sure he know what is to do. let's sit down with the republicans and say, do we really want this for america? do we want four more years of deadlock where we can't balance our budget, where we can't move

ahead or put people back to work because of politics? the old story about the red states and the blue states, you know, we've got to tell them we are the united states. and that's what we've got to start doing. and we've got to start making sure these people change their way. and the mitch mcconnell's of the world who say it's my job to make him fail, does he really want four more years of failure? does he see as an american that's good for america? i say no. and i say that somehow we have to basically appeal to the better nature of the resources to say, how do we start together rebuilding this country? how do we start doing the things we have that will put our fellow americans to work? how will we start getting jobs here, new jobs, that make people have a good living and good life in this country? how do we create opportunity in this country? i think that is the key issue that america faces after this election. so i think that can be done. i want to thank for you being here. it's great to be here. thank you very much. great to be here.

[applause] >> when you took office, you appeared at the republican convention and talked about the teamsters being bipartisan. that didn't happen. why? >> that's true. we appeared with the -- at the republican convention, and basically we felt that we could build bridges to the president at that time, bush, and we found after a short period of time they were not sincere, that they didn't want -- we said ok, i'm here for the photo-ops, i'm for that. but we want to do this with regard to trade, we want to do this with regard to jobs. they said that's not what we're talking about. we just want to use you. and we said this is not sincere. this is not why i reached out to you. we felt we could reach out to them. it didn't last very long. we found out that they really weren't sincere about helping

labor, helping people get their jobs back, and after that we got a divorce. >> supporters of unlimited money says that citizens united decisions even the playing field with labor by sending billions on behalf of its favored candidates. how do you respond? >> well, they are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars because of the eight people that i listed. there are many different super pacs. where does the money come from for unions? it comes from americans and workers who contribute money themselves to a campaign. they dig into their pockets and basically say, i want to be part of the political process. what we spend is basically so small compared to what they have. they will outspend us.

they outspent us in wisconsin and ohio and they will outspend us in this election. i think citizens united was a terrible political decision. it will probably take a long time to change it the way the court is set up. we need to change it or else it will distort america. >> how much money do you plan to spend on the 2012 campaign? >> we will be spending what we always spend, but it is not enough. we do not have enough money to do what we want. we had to basically call our local unions and say, will you finance people to go out and campaign? will you do that with your treasury? the international does not have enough money to do it. we have to go to our local councils. what we will do is do as much as

we can. >> what are you doing to ensure that teamster members vote and that they vote for president obama? >> we are going out and talking to people. at our building, we have about 400 or 500 people. i plan to go out all over the country and talked to union members. i would tell them, keep your eye on the prize. these people are out here to take away your unions. will take away your national right to work. they want to take away what you take for granted. we're proud of the standard of living that we have brought people into the middle class. our members understand that. i will pull out my wallet and say, this is about you and your family. if you did not have this union,

you would not enjoy the life that you have. you would not have the health care or the pension that you have. we will preach that everywhere. do will be hitting all the states. i look forward to it. -- we will be hitting all of the state. i look forward to it. >> for the people who are worse off today, how can you persuade them to vote your way? >> many who were laid off are now back at work. auto industry is going up. asked the thousands of people who work in parts suppliers are back to work right now. they are better off. but it michigan, write and from, and ohio. things are better. fromke michigan, where i'm , and ohio.

things are better. >> what about the health care reforms? >> i think the health care reforms are good. i think this country needs a national health care. we did not get it, but it is something that will give health care to millions of people. it does cause structural problems for unions, but overall you will be able to get insurance if you have a pre- existing illness. your kid can stay on your payroll until 26. i mean, there are so many good things in the affordable health care act. that is what we are talking to our members about. >> how they want congress and the president to avoid the

fiscal cliff later this year? it is a combination of tax hikes and automatic budget cuts. >> that crisis is coming. that is exactly what i am talking about. there needs to be a sit down. what do you want to do it? do you want to do the same thing you have been doing for four years? or should we saw america's problem. that is the issue that we face. it is amazing. the problem will be huge. basically the democrats in the administration will go all the way with this to say that we need to have change and have more revenue. at one point, the president basically said he will do 10-1. he said, you give me $1 billion and i will trade $10 billion. that is amazing.

i did not think that there will be a crisis. if they do not solve the problem, there'll be some kind of jury rig to get by the crisis. >>, it should the fed do to strengthen the economy through monetary -- how much should the fed do to strengthen the economy through monetary policy? >> the fed has been doing a lot. we have great interest rates. people are refinancing. it is helping the economy. many businesses are refinancing. and they are talking about a new stimulus coming up. there is a lot to be done. republicans are against any stimulus. one of the things i like to talk about is that anyone who does not go the line with republicans, the tea party goes after them.

we had a republican who is for it and they ran some against him. it is amazing. anyone who does not toe the line and they basically go after him. there is no compromise. we need to bring back bipartisanship and compromise. those are words that seem to have disappeared from the republican lexicon. >> does labor considered itself to be part of the solution to the economic globe? what specifically can labor do to bring america roaring back? >> i think we should continue to do what we are doing. first, reelect barack obama. second, we are out there working on legislation. we are working on plans to get america moving and people back to work. we are working in the administration with the democrats in the house and the senate'. the want to rebuild bridges and

roads. put back to work. we need more things like that that are putting people back to work that are real and that you can count and look at them and say that 100,000 or 200,000 people are back to work with that work. >> how can labor help challenge foreign companies to help the american century? >> that is one of the embarrassing things with regards to foxconn. it is amazing that we have all of this going on in a company as rich as apple. why can they not build a plant in california? what would be wrong with that? why can they not bring jobs back? we have the scandal with foxconn.

they have employed thousands of people in china. they make these computers and laptops and things like that. they have terrible working conditions. it has become a scandal. the way to solve that, we cannot do much with china, but what we can do is bring jobs back to america with decent wages and safer working conditions. [applause] >> beyond traditional servicing jobs, how well organized labor e-book to match a changing economy? it must keep costs low and prices high. >> we are doing everything we can. you can see the charts that show american productivity. the wages of the average american reflect -- i was talking to economists who were talking about the lost decade.

working people in general have not advanced over the last 10 years because of the crisis and the crash and a lot of other reasons. their lives have not gone up. the productivity has gone up for a lot are reasons. that kind of productivity seems to me that you should be rewarded for your productivity. in this economy, they are not rewarded. that needs to change. it is not about cutting wages. it is about making sure the people work hard and we find new ways to get the job done. look at some of the things that uaw has done. they have to serve jobs and have been very competitive. -- conserved jobs and have been very competitive. productivity is up and workers

need a raise. >> the focus has been on public- sector unions and collective bargaining. the private sector have to worry about similar attacks? >> in one of the states, the republican politicians came to us. they said, we want the public employees. we are not after you. you guys are ok. we did not believe them. that is what they were trying to tell us so that we would not oppose them. in the labor movement, we realize that an injury to one is an injury to all. we are very strong with our friends and our compatriots that are in the public sector. we have to keep standing with them. they cannot divide us. they are trying to divide us. >> what needs to change for private-sector unions to grow again?

>> i think we need an economy. the economy is down. if it comes back, i think you will see everything starts to expand. companies will start investing. we do a lot of briefing with regards to transportation. it is tied to the economy. it is a barometer to the economy. we really see that and bumping along as it goes up or down. it has not taken off. we need to get this economy moving again. hopefully with this election, we can get this economy moving again. a growing economy will fix that. that is all you need. >> which is the biggest challenge for organized labor -- relevance or branding? >> i think it is organizing. we need to get people out in our unions and get more people to believe in our union.

300 people joined our union. that is what this is about. making sure that we are strong and that people believe in the teamster union or the uaw.join -- join a union right now. what do to help people in north carolina that have to% unemployment? do you know what i tell them? join a union. >> europe union joined with -- 27 others -- withwit several others.

several have dropped out. is your union, change to win, a big flop? >> we have very close working relationships. the reason why we left is because he wanted to emphasize a more organized organizing. that is the core of what we want to do. we felt we could do that better outside of it. i want everyone to know that with regard to politics and social issues, even the we are in another federation of steam closemsters, we were together. we have respect for each other. we are very collegial. basically, we are united in one cause to make america stronger.

>> of the teamsters have had a number of bitter battles with a small aircraft union. what is so bad about amsa? >> i have always called it a phony union. the talk about it being a post office box in can edit it. that is what it really is. they have not really done -- in connecticut. that is what it really is. and not really done anything. they come in and sell people a bunch of goods and basically cause strikes. they are a parasite. we do not been them. >> the teamsters are one of the few unions gaining membership. how did get workers into the union? ?

>> if we had a better economy, i think everyone would do better. if people are were building factories are putting people back to work, you would see more growth in the labor movement. other unions are growing and trying to do that right now. the low economy is very hard. there is a lot of fear out there. people have lost their savings. that lost a decade i was talking about. they have lost their wages or their homes or the value of their homes. what we need is a robust economy to get people interested and strong again. >> when the labor movement faced epic struggles in ohio, you joined with a member unit around

what to call the labor table. what did that experience tell you about the need for when labor federation and a coordinated campaign for all organized labor? >> we are very proud about what we did at the labor table. on the war on workers with regards to ohio, wisconsin, and indiana, all of those polled our money to basically put good people on the ground in every state to fight these battles. it was not the teamsters doing their thing. we pooled our resources into one idea. it really worked well. we are not ready to go back. we will continue to do that. with regards to politics and the attack on working families, we have to be together. the labor table has been a big success for us. we are proud of it. >> the teamsters have been under a consent to trade since 1989.

when will it be lifted? >> hopefully soon. we are under a consent decree. it has been there since 1989. we'd like to see it lifted. our union is a cleaned union. there is a corruption in our union. if we are more democratic than almost any other union. we went through another cycle of elections. i do not know what else there is to be done. we are looking forward to our case. it is one of the oldest cases on the docket. you would think that someone would want to settle it and make it go away. we are ready to enter into a very good settlement for both sides. all of us can declare victory. >> how hard ought is it on a day-to-day basis for the union to operate under the consent decree? >> it is not really impact the

daily operations of the union. there is reporting, but the daily operations are now affected. the money that we have to pay to maintain the apparatus established by that consent decree is something i wish would go away so we could put that into organizing. >> you touched on this a moment ago. you deny your teamsters and corruption in the same sentence any more -- do not hear " teamsters" and "corruption"in the same sentence any more. >> i am glad to hear that. [laughter] our whole union is a different culture and it was a while back. we are a union that prides itself on how hard we work for our members.

we are a clean union. we are proud of the fact we are democratic. we believe in democracy. these are things that we work on very hard. there is a culture in our union of being hard-working. we make sure that we have a clean union. we are proud of that. >> how many members have organized among freight since becoming president? >> overnight it became ups freight. are doing and try to organize overnight -- our union tried to organize over night. it was not successful. ups bought them. we talked to ups.

if the members wanted to do an agreement, would go along with that? they went along with it. for the first time, over 12,000 members at ups freight are not teamsters. we are very proud of that. teamsters.now we are very proud of that. there are issues everywhere. ups is a unique company. we want to make sure that conditions are better. we want to make sure that we maintain our benefit. we want to make sure that we maintain our number of full-time workers. i think also today that we want to make sure that we work on health care. it is important for members and their families. also, pensions. when you have people making good

wages and they get older and start thinking that the next paycheck should go into pensions, there'll be pressure to make pensions better. everyone is interested in more money when they retire. they see what is going on in america. it is hard ball to get them better pensions. the pension will be one of the big issues in negotiations. >> what should be done to strengthen and protect these pension plans? >> pension funds are difficult right now. it is no secret. all you have to do is read the paper. as pension funds mature, it is important to get new employees in. it is difficult to grow the pension funds. what we are seeing with pension funds is something we did not see years back. when my father for set up a pen just a fun, their four people

working and one person retiring ension fund, there were four people working and one person retiring. now it is reversed. you have to rely on the stock market. you have to rely on different ways to make money to keep the benefits of. unless we have new people in, it is difficult to maintain the pension benefits as they are. we need more employees coming in to make sure that ratio is not one-five the opposite way. that is difficult to maintain. >> how did the teamsters reconcile the mission to protect workers' rights to the increasing expectations among employers that employees will work longer hours? >> well, the teamsters are pretty tough. we tell them that it will not happen. we'll work hard.

we believe in and on this day for ahonest's day's work day's pay. one of the issues that came up with some of our employers is harassment from people being harassed. we put a top -- stop to that. we want to maintain good jobs with good money. the costs of living goes up every year. you cannot have people going backwards. we will not disappoint them. >> what effect does nasa have on american workers? >> in washington, d.c., it depends on who you talk to.

to me, i have seen millions of jobs disappear across the board. i could give you 20 names of teamster companies that closed and went out of business from mr. coffee to whirlpool. one day they walk in and tell people in a plant, we are closing this plant and moving to mexico. the workers said, what did we do wrong? nothing. we are making money, but we could make more money in mexico. that is a heartless story. it is the most ironic one. the close the factory and put all the machines on a train and took it to mexico.

they asked our people to come down and train the mexicans. needless to say, we tell them what to do with that. we did not train the mexicans. that program has been a disaster. i do not know anyone who thought it was a good deal. all you need to do is cross the border to see the companies that used to be here now over there. i do not know of any mexican company cupping up here and putting down a factory. -- coming up here and putting down a factory. >> what are your goals in negotiating a new contract with ups, the largest teamsters employer? >> i have tim hall sitting here.

we are very proud that last week we had members in from all over the country. we have done surveys. we have a good idea of where we want to go with this contract. we think we can get a good contract. it will be more wages and more pensions. i think pensions will be important. we want to keep health care. it is tremendously important to families. they need to have health care for their families. that will be very important. we think those are the issues. we think that you can get it. the important thing is that we are working to make sure that we get more full-time jobs, also. there are a lot of part-time jobs. we want to keep doing that number out. that is important to our members. >> we are almost out of time. i have a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of.

first of all, i would like to remind you about our upcoming luncheon speakers. on a october 2, we have arne duncan. on october 10, general martin dempsey will be speaking. ournd, i'd like to present guest with our traditional national press club coffee mug. >> thank you very much. >> i do have one last question for you. instead of an 18 wheeler, if it is not horsepower, what is significant of the horses? will they be running in the kentucky derby? >> their names are under and

lightning -- thunder and lightning. someone who rides and drives those wagons across the country. that is what teamsters are. we make sure that we maintain the wheel and make sure the two maintain how our union was settled. >> how about a round of applause for our speaker. [applause] i would like to say thank you to the national press club for organizing today's event. you can find more information about the national press club on www.press.org. thank you. we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national